C. Auguste Dupin discussing Dupin's method in the light of Charles Sanders Peirce's logic of making good guesses or "abductive reasoning," Nancy Harrowitz first quotes Poe's definition of analysis and then shows how "Poe the semiotician is running the gamut of possibilities here—inferences, reasoning backwards, visual, sensual and aural signs, reading faces. Playing cards with the man would have been an interesting experience." There is considerable controversy about the philosophical nature of Dupin's method. According to biographer Joseph Krutch, Dupin is portrayed as a dehumanized thinking machine, a man whose sole interest is in pure logic. However, Krutch has been accused elsewhere of
Louis Ellies Dupin the opening part of his second volume of "Remarques". Petit-Didier's observations often seem inspired by prejudices of his time. Thus Dupin had placed St. Macarius the Egyptian in the 4th century, to which indeed he rightly belongs. Having discovered Semipelagianism in this author's works, Petit-Didier concluded that Macarius should come after Pelagius and St. Augustine (II, 198). In reality similar ideas had been professed by many before St. Augustine's time. A more formidable enemy appeared in Bossuet, who, during a public thesis at the Collège de Navarre in 1692, condemned Dupin's audacity. Dupin answered him and Bossuet appealed to the