Questions tagged [induction]
The induction tag has no usage guidance.
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Confusion between deductive and inductive reasoning definitions
The following arguments is always given as a classic example to deductive reasoning:
All men are mortal. (First premise)
Socrates is a man. (Second premise)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal. ...
1
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1answer
67 views
Should we accept non-predictive inductive arguments based on cultural judgments?
Some inductive arguments that are taken seriously are based on observations about society/culture that cannot be objectively confirmed and do not produce any predictions. Does that make them less ...
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What fallacy is assuming something is the case because of past events
I'm sure this is a simple question. What I am referring to is disbelieving someone on Day 20 because they have lied every day previous to Day 20.
Another example is the boy who cried wolf. The 50th ...
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Is deduction based on induction?
I'm wondering if deduction is in the end based on induction.
The problem of induction discovered by the Scottish philosopher David Hume is quite well known. On the other hand, it's commonly supported ...
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3answers
70 views
Is symbolic regression Popperian or inductivist?
This has been on my mind for a few days. I'd love a criticism of my arguments outlined here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/fallible-ideas/9bcC5WN6bLs. I'll re-issue them here:
While ...
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195 views
Can all inductive arguments be written as deductive arguments?
Whenever I see inductive arguments being used, it seems as though they can be redone by simply making certain assumptions and rephrasing the argument as a deduction from those assumptions.
For ...
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32 views
Can the conclusion of an inductive argument be that there is only one exception to the list of evidentiary claims?
Can this be an example of an inductive argument?
Premise 1: Country A rejected idea Z.
Premise 2: Country B rejected idea Z.
Premise 3: Country C rejected idea Z.
Premise 4: Country D rejected ...
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5answers
470 views
How do I operate with philosophers if I reject deductive reasoning?
Deductive reasoning is the one that takes premises for granted. I never do it. Therefore I never do deductive reasoning.
Well, enough jokes. It is safe to assume that deductive reasoning never should ...
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255 views
If nature is inherently imprecise, how is it so easy for us to conceptualize mathematical certainties?
In modeling any real physical system, we are required to employ inductive reasoning. We can never be completely certain about the state or properties of any system or of any future observation we will ...
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909 views
Inductive and deductive arguments and mathematical induction
I started reading Paul Teller's A Modern Formal Logic Primer. In the first chapter, the book presents the inductive and deductive arguments with the following examples:
The inductive argument:
...
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2answers
237 views
Can inductive arguments be made in first order logic and, if not, why not?
After reading a question by rus9384 Why is faulty generalization called an informal fallacy? I wondered whether induction can be part of any argument in first order logic (FOL).
rus9384 symbolized ...
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3answers
117 views
What's wrong with the following argument regarding temporal limits?
Let us suppose there is a limit: you cannot buy something after 10:00PM. From the position of law, of course "cannot" must be taken directly. But from the position of common thinking, people are less ...
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4answers
827 views
How did Aristotle define induction so incorrectly?
From: Philip Johnson-Laird BA PhD Psychology (UCL), Stuart Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton. (Author isn't a logician.) How We Reason (1st edn 2008). p. 431, for Ch. 1.
The ...
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5answers
198 views
Questioning determinism (example)
Questioning the world's deterministic behaviour, I shall present an example which seems to defy any certainty about the recurrence of events and is (obviously) a result of faulty logic, but I would ...
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4answers
325 views
Is actual infinity physical infinity? Or just the axiom of infinity?
I've always been a little confused on this point.
My (second-hand) understanding of Aristotle's difference between potential and actual infinity is this:
We all have an intuition of the counting ...
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53 views
Swinburne's solution to Grue
In the new riddle of induction, Swinburne proposes the idea that there is a genuine distinction to be made between the predicate 'green' and the predicate 'grue' in that 'green' is a qualitative ...
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1answer
199 views
How does a Bayesian respond to the Grue-hypothesis?
According to Bayesian inference/confirmation theory, your confidence in a hypothesis increases as you observe more and more evidence predicted by that hypothesis (according to bayes theorem and the ...
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143 views
On the circularity of induction
Hume's problem of induction is that any attempt to justify induction would lead to a circular argument. Can someone give an example to illustrate this and maybe explain the problem more?
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162 views
Hume's problem of induction
Hume argued that assuming A causes B isn't the same as arriving at a truth of logic. However, even though Hume cautioned the "the mental habit" of induction should be used carefully he still believed ...
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Help me understand Earman and Salmon's pragmatic vindication
"Hume showed convincingly that, if nature is uniform, inductive reasoning will work very well, whereas, if nature is not uniform, inductive reasoning will fail. This much is pretty easy to see. [Some ...
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Need of philosophy experts! [closed]
I am a beginner philosopher and I have to explain Hume's "Doubts concerning the operations of the understanding" as part of a short exercise for my class. Would anyone be willing to give their honest ...
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0answers
87 views
How does Hume justify his account of the origin of causation to a general sense?
Hume's account of causation explains why we think specific things have causes and explains them in terms of their constant connection in our minds such that we associate them by "habit". Hume brings ...
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480 views
Does Popper's falsification view of the problem of induction have any implications for the NEW riddle of induction?
Popper claims to solve Hume's problem of induction by explaining that science does not use induction at all, but rather science can be described by the process of putting forward hypotheses and then ...
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1answer
62 views
Does Hume's skepticism about induction extend to his treatise?
Can we extend Hume's skeptical conclusions to the treatise itself? How far reaching is Hume's skepticism, and if it is all-encompassing, then what is (as he sees) the purpose of his work?
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510 views
Is Goodman's new riddle of induction a restatement of Hume's problem of induction?
I was reading Goodman's [Facts, fictions and forecasts] and was confused by the new riddle of induction. I don't really see what's new about it, it seems to me like a restatement of Hume's problem ...
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661 views
Is there a deduction analog to the problem of induction?
Aren't deductive and inductive reasoning equally unjustified? So, inductive reasoning is going from specifics to general, whilst deductive reasoning is going from general to specific. But in deductive ...
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3answers
105 views
How applicable is the problem with induction to real life?
I am an engineer and know nothing about philosophy, my friend is an economist who argues that the problem with induction invalidates all predictions based on induction.
I can understand this on a ...
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206 views
Do Hume’s Problem and Zeno’s Arrow Paradox have the same solution?
Both Hume’s Problem and Zeno’s Arrow Paradox freeze an observation in time. Do they have the same solution?
To show that the future may not be predicted from the past, the test that David Hume ...
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1answer
79 views
What is an appropriate way to solve a Mill's method table, if it exists?
I'm being asked to determine the cause of a phenomenon using Mill's methods and a table of relevant factors. Below is the table:
A B C D E Event
* * *
* * ...
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1answer
550 views
Why can't uniformity of nature (in principle) be proven deductively?
I've been reading about the problem of induction and I have trouble understanding the argument for nature's uniformity being impossible to prove deductively.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on ...
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Are “if smoke then fire” arguments deductive or inductive?
I'm new to philosophy and have a question regarding deductive vs. inductive reasoning:
I'm told that "John ate a strange plant in the forest and got sick. Clearly, the plant made John sick."
I ...
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0answers
75 views
Does reliabilism fall to the problem of induction?
From what I've gathered, reliabilism states that epistemic justification occurs when someone forms a belief via truth-conducive methods. However, doesn't this fall to the problem of induction? Isn't ...
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2answers
272 views
Based on evolution, do we arrive at deductive principles inductively?
If our knowledge of deductive principles is a result of evolution... doesn't this mean that we arrive at deductive principles inductively?
Assuming deductive principles are beneficial for survival, ...
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456 views
Is this an inductive or a deductive argument?
Two flowers of the same cultivar were planted in adjacent plots .
The first was fertilized with Miracle-Gro and it flourished (2); The second was not and it din't(3) .
Therefore , Miracle-Gro ...
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2answers
100 views
What skeptical arguments do not use induction?
What skeptical arguments do not use induction? I haven't yet found anything which says these do not exist, so doubt that they don't. But I'm still intrigued, as SEP says that
[a] way to motivate ...
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0answers
109 views
What are the modern views on the problem of induction? [closed]
The problem of induction was postulated by David Hume more than 200 years ago. I know that Karl Popper tackled the issue by using "innocent until proven guilty" approach. However, I would like to know ...
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203 views
Is this inductive or deductive?
The fact that we know we have a great great grandfather. Is the reasoning we use for this inductive or deductive?
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221 views
What is the name of the fallacy that denies inductive generalization based on emphasizing exceptions?
I am looking for the name of a logical fallacy that denies validity of induction based on an observed and repeated pattern (AKA statistics) by citing exceptions to the pattern which are outliers of ...
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260 views
Induction and prejudice
Is there any difference between prejudice and inductive reasoning (not mathematical induction)?
If so, what is the difference?
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49 views
What sort of knowledge has been retained through theory change?
The wikipedia article on the PMI says
When we develop a new theory, the central ideas of the old one usually
become refuted. Parts of the old theory, however, we carry over to the
new one
This ...
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4answers
206 views
In what way does induction concern itself “entirely with justification”?
Karl Popper was "opposed to induction when it came to science", in the words of one of his reviewers, because
Induction concerns itself entirely with justification – with establishing theories and ...
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148 views
Is logic based on uncertainty the fundamental logic?
Most formal logics are based on certainty, but certainty is only one probability among others, so a logic based on uncertainty and probability should be considered as the fundamental logic from which ...
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174 views
New riddle of induction; does the observer know the arbitrary time t?
Wikipedia, in "New riddle of induction", sets out Nelson Goodman's paradox as follows:
Goodman defined grue relative to an arbitrary but fixed time t as
follows: An object is grue if and only if ...
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4answers
498 views
What are the critiques of the “we might as well assume it” solution to the problem of induction?
I'm curious whether the following proposed solution to the problem of induction has ever been discussed in the literature:
Either the future resembles the past or it does not resemble the past. If it ...
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2k views
Inductive conclusions go beyond the content of the premise(s)
In my textbook A Concise Introduction to Logic, the author states this:
In general, inductive arguments are such that the content of the conclusion is in some way to "go beyond" the content of the ...
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3answers
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Propositional Logic: How to prove the contraposition in the Fitch system?
Given that:
p ⇒ q
prove that:
¬q ⇒ ¬p
using the Fitch system.
(This being the proof of the Contraposition)
3
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1answer
179 views
Why is “similarity” not a logical relation? (from “Natural Kinds” by Quine)
I have two questions regarding Quine's paper “Natural Kinds”:
Why isn't similarity a logical relation?
Why is our ability to recognize similarity so fundamental?
These two things are explained in ...
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1answer
187 views
Kant's Solution to Uniformity of Nature
I am aware that Kant addressed Hume's skepticism on causality, but I don't see anything in his CPR that solves the problems of induction and uniformity of nature in other contexts like everyday life, ...
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235 views
What are the Consequences of Rejecting Induction?
It seems to me that the rejection of the validity of induction would cause a deep skepticism in pretty much everything but most prominently in perception. If we can never assume uniformity of nature, ...
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Is this a fallacy: no argument against X, therefore X?
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine, a vegan. Here's what she said: "I was talking to a vegan philosopher once, and he said that he is a vegan because there is no good argument against veganism"...
