The next mayor of New York City is .... Zohran Kwame Mamdani. Mamdani and I share a birthday. He was born on October 18, 1991, the day I turned thirty-three. At any rate, I believe I have already shared my view that Mamdani's election in likely to be a disaster for the City that has now placed itself in his hands. I would like today to address the question: will that disaster help or hurt President Donald Trump? I've heard one theory that Trump needs a good bogeyman. After all, Nancy Pelosi was his bogeywoman for a long time. She remains in the House of course but has faded into the background and her successor in party leadership there, Hakeem Jeffries, has a much lower profile. The mayor of New York City has long been a national figure -- Jimmy Walker, Fiorella LaGuardia, John Lindsey all come to mind -- even though the post doesn't seem to work as a stepping stone to higher office. So ... a mayor of New York, one who attaches the label "socialist" ...
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A few days ago, Henry asked my in the comments section to a post about a Wesley Salmon quote whether our knowledge of the basic natural forces and laws -- gravity, inertia, etc. -- is at bottom inductive? I said I didn't think so, and described the actual method of discovery as guess-and-test, or "abduction" in Charles Peirce's terminology. Today I'll go a little further into the distinction. The bottom line is that the "riddle of induction" shouldn't be all that worrisome because induction is seldom used. Abduction is the name Peirce (pictured above) gave. Unfortunately, it is also a synonym for kidnapping, but that isn't the point at the moment. Abduction in the relevant sense is inference to the simplest explanation for a phenomenon. It is often just a hunch or guess. Our knowledge about the laws of nature arose through abductions. Benjamin Franklin abducted: that it would be more economical to believe that the static sparks that ar...