Introduction Depression is a highly prevalent mental disorder worldwide, and its cognitive rigidity—characterized by persistent negative beliefs resistant to countervailing evidence—remains a critical puzzle in philosophical psychiatry and clinical psychology. Existing theories of abductive reasoning have struggled to explain why similar adversities lead to rigid negative cognition in some individuals but adaptive coping in others. Methods Drawing on a hierarchical reconstruction of Peircean abduction, this study develops a three-layer model of depressive inferential pathology. The theoretical framework integrates insights from embodied cognition, existential phenomenology, and epistemic consequentialism to analyze the formal structure of depressive reasoning. Results The model identifies three interlocking inferential failures: (1) First-order pathology: Fixation of negatively self-referential abductive explanations, narrowing explanatory space; (2) Core pathology: Failure of meta-abduction, eliminating reflective revision of explanatory practices and cognitive adaptability; (3) Inferential extension: Rigid abductive conclusions are treated as absolute premises for destructive deductive reasoning, generating self-negating conclusions and closed ruminative loops. This model unifies clinical phenomena such as rumination and cognitive distortion, and clarifies the transition from situational responses to chronic pathology. Discussion The findings suggest that depressive cognitive rigidity stems not from negative belief content alone, but from structural defects in reasoning. Effective intervention should focus on restoring meta-abductive capacity—treating one’s own explanatory practices as revisable—complementing traditional approaches that target belief correction. This framework bridges philosophical psychiatry and clinical theory, offering a unified account of depression’s cognitive persistence and resistance to intervention.
Sun et al. (2026) studied this question.