Hitchcock’s The Rear Window- An Example of Trieletical Abduction

C.S. Pierce’s abduction is a consequence of pragmaticism. Pierce’s wrote about trielectical thinking. That is something like an internal three-part thought process Wankel engine. It is obviously a little better than dialecticism. Jeff (James Stewart) could look out his rear window, input sense data and make inferences about the material observed. Reasoning about present and absent common human behavior and the behavior of the salesman and his invalid wife who were observed through their distant rear windows Jeff abducted a theory of murder. How did Jeff observe facts and have a conversation with himself (and others) to elicit a nominative thought process to abducted a tentative conclusion?

Deductive reasoning should generate a conclusion supported strictly by the premises; each of which must be valid. Inductive reasoning allows new items to be created from various premises without as much technical rigor or validity. Abductive reasoning is a third way of tying various abstract observations or facts together that precipitate inferences about various premises that may or may not be related in such a way as to form a valid theory. It is interesting that Pierce’s third way is a third method of practical logic in parallel to his three-part way of subjective cogitation about percepts and reason. I like Pierce’s work yet I feel it is not correct today as a model for neurological processing of thought. Contemporary advances in neuroscience have made a different model than a trielectical system. Abductive reasoning could emanate from the subconscious however, formed from a myriad of sources of data stored in memory.

Jeff’s nurse, a woman of practical knowledge, immediately agrees with Jeff’s suspicion. Jeff's girl;friend, a wealthy society woman, is quite skeptical and tries to persuade Jeff that his opinion is a diseased one, until she sees the salesman packing up a large trunk with rope, herself. At the moment she changed her mind completely to be in complete agreement with Jeff. Perhaps witnessing a part of Jeff’s narrative at a further point of the story line such that it would be in complete agreement was the clincher that made her flip flop. It might alternatively have bee the meaning of seeking a packing trunk to her. She may have found it subconsciously troubling in meaning as Jeff one day too might pack a trunk and move somewhere far away in the world to pursue his photo-journalism profession she is not part of.

Jeff’s war buddy Detective Tom has a skeptical opinion. Without a body, hard evidence or eye-witnesses of a crime he is unwilling to validate the abduction line of murder that Jeff provides. He explained to Jeff that the law won’t allow a search of the salesman’s apartment without a warrant, and there aren’t sufficient grounds for a judge to issue a warrant. Tom also has counter-abductive premises of the salesman’s innocence; such as the exit of the invalid wife that morning to catch a train and a telegram from her to the salesman saying she had arrived at some distant place. The salesman’s apartment lease was also nearly expired so the timing on moving was reasonable.

Tom would not relinquish his incredulity until hard evidence dropped into his lap when Lisa found the ring of the salesman’s wife . Ye I knew much earlier that the salesman was a murderer recognizing instantly that the little dog that resembled Judy Garland’s little dog Toto, digging in the garden of the perp, smelled something foul buried deep below. An additional abduction I made was that Lisa being such a sweet rich woman could not have been wrong in throwing all her support behind Jeff’s theory. That simply is not the way Hollywood wrote mystery stories in that era.

Lisa at the end takes high risks and proves she is actually a smart, wonderful, brave woman whom Jeff is too lucky to have devoted to him. Unless the script was completely at the extremity of the bell curve and Lisa was actually the killer just toying with Jeff whom she knew was being a voyeur for eight weeks with his broken leg in a cast looking out his rear window, the conclusion had to be that the villainous philandering salesman that got rid of his old, invalid wife in order to secure a newer and better upgrade was guilty.