[Home]History of Deduction and induction

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Revision 5 . . (edit) September 28, 2001 9:17 am by (logged).129.134.xxx [* A few fixes to sentence structure]
Revision 4 . . August 5, 2001 11:19 am by Simon J Kissane
Revision 3 . . (edit) March 22, 2001 6:37 am by Larry Sanger
  

Difference (from prior major revision) (minor diff, author diff)

Changed: 7c7,9
The reason these rough definitions are phrased in terms of what the arguments "aspire" to be is that an argument can be properly the subject of deductive logic even though it is not valid or cogent; it can be studied by logic even though it fails to be what it aspires to be. So deduction is concerned with validity; induction is concerned with cogency. So in deductive logic one studies forms of arguments such that the conclusion must be true if the premises are true; and in inductive logic one studies forms of arguments such that the conclusion is probably true if the premises are true.
The reason these rough definitions are phrased in terms of what the arguments "aspire" to be is that an argument can be properly the subject of deductive logic even though it is not valid or cogent; it can be studied by logic even though it fails to be what it aspires to be. So deduction is concerned with validity; induction is concerned with cogency. In deductive logic one studies forms of arguments such that the conclusion must be true if the premises are true; in inductive logic one studies forms of arguments such that the conclusion is probably true if the premises are true.

Sometimes a distinction is also made between abduction and induction.

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