The paper proposes a way to naturalise Charles S. Peirce’s conception of the scientific method, which he specified in terms of abduction, deduction and induction. The focus is on the central issue of the economy of research in abduction and self-correction by error reduction in induction. We show how Peirce’s logic of science receives support from modern breakthroughs in computational neuroscience, and more specifically from Karl Friston’s statements of active inference and the Free Energy Principle, namely the account of how organisms’ capacity to decrease the discrepancy between the expected value and actual outcomes entails the minimisation of errors in their hypotheses about the world. A scientific account of organisms’ capacity to choose policies and form expectations is aligned with Peirce’s theories of abduction and induction, and especially with the economy of research. The upshot is the recovery of Peirce’s theory of the logic of science in the context of active inquiry.

该论文提出了一种方法来自然化查尔斯·皮尔斯 (Charles S. Peirce) 的科学方法概念，他根据溯因、演绎和归纳进行了详细说明。重点是通过归纳中的错误减少进行溯因和自我纠正研究的经济性的中心问题。我们展示了 Peirce 的科学逻辑如何从计算神经科学的现代突破中获得支持，更具体地说，从 Karl Friston 的主动推理和自由能原理的陈述中获得支持，即有机体如何减少预期值与实际值之间差异的能力结果需要最大限度地减少他们对世界假设的错误。对有机体选择政策和形成预期的能力的科学解释与皮尔斯的诱因和归纳理论一致，尤其是研究经济。结果是在积​​极探究的背景下恢复了皮尔斯的科学逻辑理论。