• DOI:10.1515/semi.1979.26.3-4.203
• Corpus ID: 170683439

“You Know my Method”: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes

@inproceedings{Sebeok1979YouKM,
  title={“You Know my Method”: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes},
  author={Thomas Albert Sebeok and Jean Umiker-Sebeok},
  year={1979}
}

• T. Sebeok, J. Umiker-Sebeok
• Published 1979
• Art

In Patterns of Discovery, Norwood Russell Hanson claims that only "an inspired detective"3 is equal to the genre of guessing that results in original scientific hypotheses, or, in more technical terms, equal to applying retroductive inference to the enterprise of scientific discovery. Such a scientist, like the astute detective, must be capable of seeing "in familiar objects what no one else has seen before".2 "You Know My Method" is an explication of this claim; it is the building up of an analogy between two figures who immortalized the concepts of retroductive inference and inspired detection Charles Peirce and Sherlock Holmes respectively. In his foreword to the volume, Max Fisch ably captures the essence of this analogy when he describes the Sebeoks' book as a comparison of "the historical Peirce and the fictional Sherlock Holmes as detectives and as elaborators of the theory of detection". The suggested points of similarity between Peirce's and Holmes* models of detection are more intriguing when Peirce and Holmes are viewed as theoreticians speculating about the nature of the process of deriving explanations for puzzling facts than when they are viewed as practitioners knee-deep in the actual sleuthing process themselves. My review shall examine the book's comparison of Peirce and Holmes first as practicing detectives and second as theorists of detection strategy. The Sebeoks do cite one instance in which Peirce assumes the role of the traditional detective-story sleuth; it is stated in the foreword that this incident was documented by Peirce in an article published by the Hound and Horn magazine several years after his death. During the course of this episode, Peirce, like his fictional counterpart Sherlock Holmes, outmaneuvered the official crime detectors. On discovering an expensive watch and chain missing while aboard the Steamship Bristol in New York, Peirce immediately lined up and interrogated all the "coloured waiters". In a matter of minutes, Peirce had brought his retroductive acumen successfully to bear on the matter and had identified the culprit. The case would have been speedily concluded had not the Pinkerton Detective Agency, true to the form of blundering officials depicted in detective fiction, seen fit to disagree with Peirce's diagnosis of the situation and shadowed the wrong man.