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In this article, abduction is discussed as a possible way of developing an epistemology for an autonomous caring science based on an ontology that requires deeper understanding of the world of caring. The intention is to elicit a more distinct caring-scientific pattern of knowledge based on the innermost core and historical conditions of caring. Abduction makes it possible to perceive connections on a deeper level and to penetrate in a way that reveals a richness of meaning, reflecting the true being in the dynamic process which is expressed in clinical reality. In the tradition of knowledge developed by Peirce, a synthesis of Hume's and Kant's tradition of knowledge, abduction is a fundamental idea. Peirce sees abduction as an operation of thought in which the recognition of underlying patterns makes a complex reality comprehensible. We regard the triad of abduction, induction and deduction as the basis for developing a caring-scientific epistemology where abduction makes a synthesizing abstraction possible and may implement understanding of deeper patterns.
Eriksson et al. (Mon,) studied this question.