A hypothesis is, of course, a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. Researchers are using all kinds of hypotheses to explain enigmatic phenomena.
Charles Peirce has sometimes used hypothesis as a synonym for abduction. The semiotician claims that this type of reasoning includes interaction between the three types of inference.
The hypothesis (abduction) is in some way in the center of that interaction, because the principled role of the deduction is to separate consequences from the hypothesis, whereas the main problem of the induction is to check the hypothesis in the terms of the consequences.
The semioticians – the followers of Peirce claim that we are often included in such a process of logical research while reading a text.
