Yet, in so far as regularities, however limited, are identifiable, predictive explanations are still possible and ideographic explanations by
retroduction are not the only option (Mitchell 2009; Byrne and Uprichard 2012).
Rather little of scientific reasoning involves deduction; induction,
retroduction (inferring the presence of possible causal mechanisms), and argument by analogy are more common (Bhaskar [1975] 1979; Taylor [1967] 1973).
Since this research work does not seek to prove, disprove or compare phenomena but rather to discover the underlying structures of a nascent domain of knowledge, this study adopted a mixed research perspective combining behavioral and design research patterns, an interpretive and critical paradigm, a mixture of research strategies focusing on
retroduction, and an exploratory mixed data collection methodology.
Peirce, Hartshorne, and Weiss (1935) synonymously referred to abductive reasoning as
retroduction and hypothesis and explained it as a necessary process of the scientific understanding of a phenomenon.
Bhaskar (1989b) himself implies a more realistic or pragmatic solution to the problem with '
retroduction' that focuses on explaining the structures or mechanisms underlying an ostensible phenomenon.
(suggesting that minor changes in natural conditions may render induction and
retroduction based research techniques inaccurate).
New materialist thinkers in other disciplines, such as Massumi, Protevi, and Connolly, however, have explored these relationships through concepts such as "
retroduction" and "feedback of 'higher' functions" (Massumi, 2002, pages 12 and 199), "interinvolvement" (Connolly, 2011a, pages 794), and the emergent subjectivities informed by "bodies politic" and a "primary corporeal inter-ipseity"(Protevi, 2009, page 45).
This is hypothesis (also known, no doubt to purposely confuse us, as "abduction" or "
retroduction"), which occurs when "we find some very curious circumstance, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition." Id.
It also outlines McMullin's theory of
retroduction and his account of scientific realism, both of which are philosophical positions that provide additional support for consonance from an epistemological perspective.
Coping in young women: Theoretical
retroduction. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28, 1082-1091.