Induction (Philosophy)

The limited aim here is to explain what John Dewey might say about the formulation of the grue example. Nelson Goodman’s problem of distinguishing good and bad inductive inferences is an important one, but the grue example misconstrues this complex problem for certain technical reasons, due to ambiguities that contemporary logical theory has not yet come to terms with. Goodman’s problem is a problem for the theory of induction and thus for logical theory in general. Behind the whole discussion of these issues over the last several decades is a certain view of logic hammered out by Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, and many others. Goodman’s nominalism hinges in essential ways on a certain view of formal logic with an extensional quantification theory at its core. This raises many issues, but the one issue most germane here is the conception of predicates ensconced in this view of logic. The problem here is the implicit assumption that there is just one type of first-order predicate. P...

In this paper, I will try to establish what sets Mill's and Whewell's theories of induction apart and argue that it is not the frequently supposed distinction between inductivism (Mill) and hypothetic-deductivism (Whewell) about the scientific method. First, I will analyze their disagreement about the role and nature of concepts in induction. Whewell argued that in scientific discovery, e.g., when Kepler discovered his law of planetary motion, a new concept, in Kepler's case that of an ellipse, is provided by the mind and then "superinduced" upon empirical facts. In contrast to this, Mill argued that the concept of an ellipse was present in the facts themselves, therefore nothing new was added by the mind. In other words, what Whewell calls "colligation of facts" and understands as a crucial part of his theory of induction, Mill dismisses as a mere description of observed facts. I will show that the argument about colligation of facts ends in a disagreement about their underlying epistemological views. Given their different epistemological commitments, the two authors respective theories have different emphasis. Mill’s theory is a theory of inductive inference – he hopes to provide a rigorous, logically sound, method of verification of generalizations. Whewell, on the other hand, thinks about induction as a method of scientific practice and thus puts emphasis both on the discovery of an appropriate concept (or a theory) and on its verification. Rather than accepting that Mill is an inductivist and Whewell a deductivist about scientific method, I will argue that they differ in their understanding of philosophy of science, its scope and aims.

On several occasions during his life, Peirce argued that Aristotle was the first to present  perfect form of induction, and also claimed that he followed Aristotle in this formulation. Despite this, Peirce criticizes Aristotle´s justifi cation of induction as an enumeration of all individuals and as a self-evident and immediate inference that depends upon intuition (nous). In this article, the author explores the readings and comments that Peirce makes of the two most important passages of Aristotle on induction (epagōgē), namely, Prior Analytics II, 23 and Posterior Analytics II, 19. The first is commented and partially translated by Peirce whereas the second is not mentioned directly, although it seems that Peirce refers to it when he discusses the problem of fi rst principles. In addition to presenting Peirce’s  comments about these two passages, the author evaluates critically their accuracy and finds that Peirce sometimes interprets them wrongly.

Inductive learning has gained well-deserved attention as a teaching strategy, but not as a student-appropriated skill. Inductive Bible Study methods provide a model for cognitive strategies that enhance reading comprehension and higher-order thinking. The present study aimed to translate these skills into cognitive strategies that third grade students could use in reading, to improve reading comprehension. The setting was a small American Christian school in an Anglophone West African country. The grade 3 class consisted of 21 students from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. The entire class participated in the curricular project of 12 lessons that taught inductive learning skills incrementally, in small- and whole-group settings. The curricular project took place over 4 weeks. A pre-test and post-test were given on reader self-efficacy and reading comprehension, and scores from Reading Street weekly tests before and during the project were collected. The data revealed that reader self-efficacy scores dropped by a small percentage between the pre-test and post-test. Reading comprehension scores for the pre-test and post-test rose slightly. The most significant gain was shown in Reading Street weekly test scores, which showed a 12% rise between average test scores before the skills were taught, and during and afterward. The results indicate that inductive learning strategies as a student-appropriated cognitive skill set can increase reading comprehension in third grade students, but a longer time span would be needed to confirm student appropriation of the skills in the long term.
Keywords: 
Reading comprehension, metacognition, inductive learning, inquiry learning, induction, cognition, inference, higher-order thinking.

This is a prelude to a book which I intend to publish. This paper describes my temporary thoughts on Einstein's pathway to the special theory of relativity. See my papers on my thoughts on Einstein's pathway to his general theory of relativity. Never say that you know how Einstein had arrived at his special theory of relativity, even if you read his letters to his wife and friends, and some other primary documents. Einstein gave many talks and wrote pieces, but at the end of the day, he told very little geographical, historical and biographical details pertaining to the years he had spent in the patent office. I thus bring here my jigsaw puzzle and warn the reader again, this is my creation and not Einstein's...

In this paper, I defend an inductivist solution to Hume's Problem of Induction against the popular counterinduction parody argument. Once we examine the structure of the inductivist position closely, we will see that there is no coherent way to parody it.

Reasoning by analogy is one of the most frequently used techniques of legal argument. In this Article, Professor Brewer presents a detailed model of that reasoning process. With its focus on the special features of analogies that are offered as justificatory arguments, Professor Brewer's model provides clear criteria that lawyers, judges, students, and scholars can use critically to assess any given argument by analogy. Moreover, challenging a widely held view, Professor Brewer uses this model to argue that legal reasoning by analogy, like analogical argument in logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences, can have a great deal of rational force when properly executed. He explains that reasoning by analogy is a three-step rule-guided process that legal reasoners typically deploy when they are in doubt about the scope of a legal concept or rule and want to use an analysis of examples to help resolve that doubt. The three-step process consists of an inference (of the type known as "abduction") from chosen examples to a rule that could resolve the doubt; confirmation or disconfirmation, by a process of reflective adjustment, of the rule thus inferred; and application of the confirmed rule to the case that occasioned the doubt. Professor Brewer also highlights the interpretive criteria that readers of analogical arguments should use in trying to understand their exact structure and content. He maintains, for example, that analogical arguments offered by judges who endorse certain widely shared rule of law values should presumptively be interpreted as relying in a special way on deductively applicable rules within the broader three-step analogical reasoning process. His discussion locates issues regarding the proper interpretation of legal analogies within broader jurisprudential debates over the extent to which legal arguments can, do, and should satisfy rule of law values.

There are many disputes about induction in the logic and philosophy of science. One of the problem is that we often use the term "induction“ in different meanings. This is precisely the point of Aristotle, the first thinker who analyzed induction systematically. The aim of the paper is to show that we are confronted with at least four different meanings of induction (epagoge) in Aristotle's writings, to analyze them and to show the role of induction in acquiring scientific knowing and the consequences for the structure and characteristics of Aristotle's system of scientific knowledge.

Karl Popper lamented the prevalence of dogmatic argument in philosophy and commended the kind of critical argument that is found in the sciences. David Miller criticises the uncritical nature of so-called critical thinking because of its attachment to dogmatic arguments. I expound and clarify Popper’s distinction between critical and dogmatic arguments and the background to it. I criticise some errors in Miller’s discussion. I reaffirm the need for philosophers to eschew dogmatic arguments in favour of critical ones.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

Der Geburtsfehler der Wissenschaftstheorie besteht nach meiner Auffassung darin, dass sie von den Theorien als Kern der Wissenschaft (respektive der Physik) ausgeht, und dabei den zugrunde liegenden Konzepten und ihrer Rolle zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit schenkt. Der Grund dafür ist darin zu sehen, dass die Wissenschaftstheorie - wie sich auch in der prominenten Platzierung des Problems der 'Abgrenzung gegenüber der Metaphysik' zeigt - grundsätzlich von einem gegenstandsaffinen Erkenntniskonzept ausgeht, das sich im Wesentlichen nicht von dem gegenstandsbezogenen, spezifizierenden Erkenntniskonzept der Metaphysik unterscheidet, dem auch die Erkenntnistheorie mit ihrem Modell von Erkenntnis als Subjekt-Objekt-Beziehung Ausdruck verleiht. Die physikalischen Konzepte werden demgemäß analog klassischen Allgemeinbegriffen aufgefasst. Symptomatisch für die Übertragung dieser Erkenntnisauffassung auf die physikalische Theoriebildung ist das Induktionsproblem.
Dieses beruht auf der Annahme, dass die Induktion, die Verallgemeinerung von singulären Beobachtungen (auf Basis von Repetition), den grundlegenden Faktor der Theoriebildung repräsentiert. Der Gedanke der Induktion, der Verallgemeinerung, korrespondiert im Grunde dem Gedanken der Subsumtion unter ein begriffliches Schema, mit entsprechenden Problemen, was den Allgemeingültigkeitsanspruch physikalischer Gesetze betrifft. 
Meine These ist, dass dieses gegenstandsaffine Erkenntniskonzept in seiner heuristischen Übertragung auf den Erkenntniszugang der Physik ein grundlegendes Missverständnis bildet, denn deren Erkenntniskonzept ist im Gegensatz zum metaphysischen nicht gegenstandsbezogen, sondern transzendental, nicht spezifizierend, sondern generalisierend. Und grundlegend dafür ist die transzendentale Rolle der physikalischen Konzepte. Der epistemologische Modus ihrer Allgemeinheit ist nicht die Subsumtion, sondern die Substitution. Sie entziehen, ontologisch gesehen, den Gegenständen (in konkretem Bezug auf ihr Verhalten und ihre 'Eigenschaften') sukzessive ihre Autonomie. Es ist die Substitution der Gegenstände durch transzendentale Konzepte, deren präsumptiver Status der Allgemeinheit den Anspruch der physikalischen Gesetze auf Allgemeingültigkeit begründet. Die Induktion spielt höchstens eine Rolle auf dem Weg, der zu den Konzepten führt.
Die These der Inadäquatheit des metaphysischen Erkenntniskonzepts (und damit verbunden auch des erkenntnistheoretischen Modells von Erkenntnis) bezogen auf die Physik bildet den Hintergrund für die Auseinandersetzung mit den wesentlichen Positionen und Stationen der klassischen Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie, im Zuge derer auch die tieferliegenden Gründe für das Festhalten am metaphysischen Erkenntniskonzept klar werden.

ÖZET

Bilimsel bir etkinlik içinde olan bilim insanları araştırmalara yönelirken, bu araştırmalardan, deney ve gözlemden hareketle genel bir yasaya ulaşma çabası içinde olurlar.  Bununla birlikte, hâlihazırda var olan teorilerini destekler örneklem aradıklarında da kimi yöntemlere başvururlar. Genelde insanın özeldeyse bilim insanının doğa ile girdiği etkileşim içinde farkında olarak ya da olmayarak, bilerek ya da bilmeyerek başvurdukları yöntemlerden biridir tümevarım. Hatta o derece ki, sanki tümevarım insan aklının doğal bir yasasıymış hissine bile kapılırız. Bu makalede de bir soru(n) olarak tümevarım ele alınıp irdelenmiştir. Araştırmamızın amacı, tümevarımı bilimsel araştırmaların vazgeçilmez bir yöntemi olarak kabul eden bilim felsefecileriyle, onun hala çözüme kavuşmamış bir problem olduğunu iddia eden felsefecilerin görüşlerini bir bütünlük içinde değerlendirip bir sonuca varabilmektir.

Anahtar Kelimeler:  Tümevarım, Tümevarımsal Çıkarım, Deneyim, Gözlem, Alışkanlık, Nedensellik

ABSTRACT
While doing their researches scientists try to reach a general law through their experiments and observations. When they do their researches, they use different scientific methods. Induction which is widely used by all humans and particularly used by scientists is one of these methods. That means that almost every human kind uses induction in his/her daily life being aware of it or not, but scientists use it more common in their scientific researches. Nevertheless whether some scientists think that induction is indispensable for scientific researches, some think that it is a ‘problem’. Thus, in this article I am going to try to discuss induction in these two points of views and give the reader reasons of the argument.

Keywords: Induction, Deduction, Inductive Reasoning, Experiment, Observation, Experience, Habit, Causality

The Laws of Thought is an exploration of the deductive and inductive foundations of rational thought. The author here clarifies and defends Aristotle’s Three Laws of Thought, called the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction and Exclusion of the Middle – and introduces two more, which are implicit in and crucial to them: the Fourth Law of Thought, called the Principle of Induction, and the Fifth Law of Thought, called the Principle of Deduction. This book is a thematic compilation drawn from past works by the author over a period of eighteen years.

There is a widespread idea that in grounded theory (GT) research, the researcher has to delay the literature review until the end of the analysis to avoid contamination – a dictum that might turn educational researchers away from GT. Nevertheless, in this article the author (a) problematizes the dictum of delaying a literature review in classic grounded theory, (b) presents arguments for using extant literature in the substantive field within a constructivist grounded theory, and (c) suggests data sensitizing principles in using literature, which are: theoretical agnosticism, theoretical pluralism, theoretical sampling of literature, staying grounded, theoretical playfulness, memoing extant knowledge associations, and constant reflexivity.

Readers of the pre-modern Arabic literary tradition recognized sarcastic speech acts. Sarcasm operates through a negative, illocutionary assessment relative to an inter-subjectively fixed standard, and implicates competing claims to authority. Pre-modern Arabic linguistic theorists articulated a number of concepts to describe a sarcastic speech act that exhibits a conflict between "apparent" and "hidden" meanings (tahakkum, istihzāʾ, sukhrīyah), thus requiring para-textual evidence to serve as a decisive factor for disambiguation. Instances of sarcasm and texts composed in a sarcastic voice appeared in a variety of Arabic literary genres, including exegesis, biography, and poetry. Textually-inclined scholars rarely discussed sarcasm as a mode of discourse because its recognition depends on the reader's use of inductive reasoning, a strategy of reading which these same scholars, in their attempts to systematize theories of Arabic grammar and language, either regarded as problematic or discouraged outright.

See also the following studies that exhibit significant overlap in approach or content:

• Satire
(Arabic) Sherif Abdelkarim, "Ibn al-Khaṭīb: Character Assassin," PMLA 137(1) (2022):70–87. Available at: https://bit.ly/3ArPNVc
(Persian) Riccardo Zipoli, Irreverent Persia: Invective, Satirical and Burlesque Poetry from the Origins to the Timurid Period (10th to 15th Centuries). Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015. Available at: https://bit.ly/3EHgd7O

• Use of inductive reasoning
Robert Gleave, Islam and Literalism: Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Islamic Legal Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), especially 63–93 (chapter 3, "The Emergence of Literal Meaning in Early Islamic Thought"). Available at: https://bit.ly/3AP259w

• Irony in the Qurʾān
Mustansir Mir, "Irony in the Qurʾān: A Study of the Story of Joseph," in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qurʾān, ed. Issa J. Boullata, 173–187. New York: Routledge, 2004. Available at: bit.ly/40tQvfT

What, exactly, is puzzling about induction? While the so-called problem of induction is normally introduced through David Hume’s famous argument, this essay shows how Sextus Empiricus gets to the heart of the matter. When properly understood, Sextus’s argument shows how the very power of inductive reasoning—its ability to move from particulars to universals—is at the same time what makes it “totter.” The argument has only been analyzed in any detail by the formal learning theorist Kevin Kelly, who uses the formal tools of computability theory and topology to mount a principled response. It is shown that this response depends on questionable assumptions and thus that they have not resolved Sextus’s riddle of induction.

Popper ci invita ad imparare dai nostri errori, a sottometere alla critica le nostre affermazioni, a non considerare le proprie idee come dogmi o come verità indiscutibili, ma soltanto come semplici opinioni. Ma c’è il pericolo di assumere il pensiero di Popper in un modo acritico, come se si trovasse al di sopra della sua stessa teoria della conoscenza. Se Popper, nelle sue riflessioni epistemologiche, ci propone delle opinioni e congetture, allora no c’è da temere di sottometterle alla critica, perché, come diceva un certo filosofo della scienza, il modo migliore di seguire Popper è, appunto, sottomettendo il suo pensiero alla critica.

Gözlemlenenlerden gözlemlen(e)meyenlere diğer bir deyişle genel yasalara ulaşma imkânı veren çıkarım yöntemi olarak tümevarımsal ya da endüktif akıl yürütmenin rasyonel olarak temellendirilmesinin imkanına yönelik soruşturma tarih içerisinde tümevarım sorunu ya da endüksiyon problemi olarak tezahür etmiştir. Bu sorunun temel argümanı tarihsel okumalara baktığımızda İskoç ampirist filozof David Hume tarafından öne sürülmüştür. Hume, tümevarımsal çıkarımlar temelinde, gözlenmeyen meseleler hakkındaki inançlarımıza hangi gerekçelerle ulaştığımızı soruşturmaktadır. Hume soruşturmasının sonucunda gözlemlenenden gözlemlen(e)meyen durumlara ilişkin yapılan olgu meseleleri ile ilgili bütün tümevarımsal akıl yürütmelerin dolaylı ya da dolaysız olarak nedensellik ilişkisine ve bu ilişkinin temelinde yer alan doğanın düzenliliği ilkesi ya da “gelecek her zaman geçmişe benzer” önermesine dayandığını ifade ederek bütün tümevarımsal akıl yürütmelerde ortak olan geleceğin her zaman geçmişe benzeyeceği ifadesinin rasyonel olarak temellendirilmesinin mümkün olmadığını belirtmektedir. Bu bağlamda, çalışmada tümevarımsal akıl yürütme sonucunda ulaşılan sonuca inanmanın hiçbir rasyonel temelinin olamayacağı yönündeki Hume’un görüşü argüman formunda yeniden yapılandırılarak ortaya konulacaktır.

It is usually accepted that deductions are non-informative and monotonic, inductions are informative and nonmonotonic, abductions create hypotheses but are epistemically irrelevant, and both deductions and inductions can’t provide new insights. In this article, I attempt to provide a more cohesive view of the subject with the following hypotheses: (1) the paradigmatic examples of deductions, such as modus ponens and hypothetical syllogism, are not inferential forms, but coherence requirements for inferences; (2) since any reasoner aims to be coherent, any inference must be deductive; (3) a coherent inference is an intuitive process where the premises should be taken as sufficient evidence for the conclusion, which on its turn should be viewed as necessary evidence for the premises in some modal range; (4) inductions, properly understood, are abductions, but there are no abductions beyond the fact that in any inference the conclusion should be regarded as necessary evidence for the premises; (5) monotonicity is not only compatible with the retraction of past inferences given new information, but it is a requirement for it; (6) this explanation of inferences holds true for discovery processes, predictions and trivial inferences.

This article centers on Hume's position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. To that end, the controversy surrounding universal gravitation shall be scrutinized. It is very well-known that Hume sides with the Newtonian experimentalist approach rather than with the Leibnizian demand for intelligibility. However, what is not clear is Hume's overall position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. It shall be argued that Hume declines Leibniz's principle of intelligibility. However, Hume does not eschew intelligibility altogether; his concept of causation itself stipulates mechanical intelligibility.

En este trabajo expondré el desarrollo de las distintas
etapas de la historia del conocimiento humano que Bacon liga
estrechamente con la historia de la salvación del hombre. En
segundo lugar, indicaré cuáles son las características del
conocimiento salomónico y los resultados de la comparación
entre conocimiento humano y conocimiento divino. A
continuación, mostraré cómo la propuesta de un método nuevo,
nunca antes practicado, para la restauración de las ciencias
tiene antecedentes pre-lapsarios (anteriores al pecado).
Finalmente explicaré en qué sentido el método inductivo es
caracterizado en la propuesta de Bacon como una vía de
conocimiento nueva y vieja, natural y artificial a la vez.

Guessing is considered a central function of scientific inquiry by most scientists and philosophers, but it has mostly been neglected as an object of philosophical analysis. I supply an initial remedy to this neglect that provides a general definition of guessing that applies to scientific inquiry. In addition, I combat the assumption that the meaning of guessing is monosemic by providing examples of various types, or gradations, of guessing. The variation of these types indicates that guessing is not merely an unambiguous, simplistic process at which philosophers of science can merely hand-wave before moving on to deduction and induction. Rather, accounting for the gradations of guessing contributes to the argument that guessing is a logical process that is an appropriate object of philosophical analysis instead of a process that necessarily falls outside of rational reconstruction. As a logical process, guessing is clearly distinguished from induction and deduction. This distinction provides an important domain of philosophical inquiry that merits further investigation, especially within philosophy of science.

How does the imagination work? How can it lead to both reverie and scientific insight? In this book, Kieran M. Murphy sheds new light on these perennial questions by showing how they have been closely tied to the history of electromagnetism.
The discovery in 1820 of a mysterious relationship between electricity and magnetism led not only to technological inventions—such as the dynamo and telegraph, which ushered in the “electric age”—but also to a profound reconceptualization of nature and the role the imagination plays in it. From the literary experiments of Edgar Allan Poe, Honoré de Balzac, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, and André Breton to the creative leaps of Michael Faraday and Albert Einstein, Murphy illuminates how electromagnetism legitimized imaginative modes of reasoning based on a more acute sense of interconnection and a renewed interest in how metonymic relations could reveal the order of things.
Murphy organizes his study around real and imagined electromagnetic devices, ranging from Faraday’s world-changing induction experiment to new types of chains and automata, in order to demonstrate how they provided a material foundation for rethinking the nature of difference and relation in physical and metaphysical explorations of the world, human relationships, language, and binaries such as life and death. This overlooked exchange between science and literature brings a fresh perspective to the critical debates that shaped the nineteenth century.
Extensively researched and convincingly argued, this pathbreaking book addresses a significant lacuna in modern literary criticism and deepens our understanding of both the history of literature and the history of scientific thinking.

This paper constitutes one extended argument, which touches on various topics of Critical Rationalism as it was initiated by Karl Popper and further developed (although into different directions) in his aftermath. The result of the argument will be that critical rationalism either offers no solution to the problem of induction at all, or that it amounts, in the last resort, to a kind of Critical Rationalist Inductivism as it were, a version of what I call Good Old Induction. One may think of David Miller as a contemporary representative of what I consider as the ‘no solution’ version of critical rationalism, while Alan Musgrave stands for the version of ‘critical rationalist induction’. Popper’s own writings admit of either interpretation.

Si nous envisageons les trois nouvelles d'Edgar Poe Double assassinat dans la rue Morgue (1841), Le Mystère de Marie Roget (1843) et La Lettre volée (1845) comme fondatrices d'un genre autonome et promu à un avenir enviable, le genre policier, nous convenons qu'elles ne sont pas nées ex-nihilo, et qu'elles sont constituées d'un ensemble de faits-sociaux, historiques, littéraires, scientifiques-déjà présents dans le premier 19e siècle, mais rassemblés et remaniés avec l'esprit et l'adresse que l'on prête à Edgar Poe. Par ailleurs, les influences ne sont pas uniquement antérieures, et, pour reprendre la notion de Pierre Bayard, il existe chez Poe une forme de « plagiat par anticipation », notamment à travers les théories du signe que l'on retrouve dans les travaux du sémiologue Charles S. Peirce (1895). Ce travail propose donc des incursions vers la préhistoire du roman policier-dans le but double, précisons-le, de justifier le bien-fondé de l'écrivain américain comme chef de file, mais également pour affirmer que le genre policier n'est pas né d'une rupture-et des incursions progressives dans le but de démontrer ce qui participe à fonder le paradigme de l'enquête et l'originalité de Poe. Nous proposons d'analyser Double assassinat dans la rue Morgue (1841) et La Lettre volée (1845) au travers du prisme méthodologique, pédagogique puis sémiologique. L'aspect pédagogique, qui doit se comprendre comme l'institution d'un « canevas policier », d'un « modèle cognitif » formé de structures diverses réitérées d'un roman ou d'une nouvelle à l'autre, occupe principalement la première partie. La composante sémiologique est réservée à la seconde partie et propose, d'une part de différencier des notions complexes et souvent confondues, et, d'autre part, de montrer comment ces dernières sont utilisées dans les nouvelles de Poe. Enfin, l'aspect méthodologique est à voir en filigrane ; à la fois comme méthodologie de l'instance auctoriale-sa poétique, par exemple-et comme une méthode d'investigation du personnage-détective Dupin.

Inductive reasoning, initially identified with enumerative induction (inferring a universal claim from an incomplete list of particular cases) is nowadays commonly understood more widely as any reasoning based on only partial support that the premises give to the conclusion. This is a tad too sweeping, for this includes any inconclusive reasoning. A more moderate and perhaps more adequate characterization requires that inductive reasoning not only includes generalizations , but also any (ideally, rational) predictions or explanations obtained in absence of suitable deductive premises. Inductive logic is meant to provide guidance in choosing the most supported from a given assembly of conjectures. In this paper we survey selected approaches to inductive logic.

Paper forthcoming in:
INTRODUCTION TO FORMAL PHILOSOPHY
S. O. Hansson, V. Hendrick, and K. Esther Michelsen (eds), Springer, 2018.

The single most important statement that can be made with regard to the logical status of human and physical geographical reasoning is that it belongs to the class of non-monotonic reasoning. In other words,  geographical reasoning is defeasible (i.e. earlier drawn conclusions can be defeated by the addition of new facts, some of which are generated by the very application of our ideas outside academe) and non-demonstrative (i.e. our beliefs about reality cannot be demonstrated once and for ever; we must do with building provisional arguments based on the current weight of the evidence, which itself changes with the times). Indeed, unlike mathematics, which is a closed world of formalisms that relies heavily on deduction, demonstration, and proof, geography studies and attempts to improve the real, messy world out there. Because that wild, unruly world is always in a process of becoming, the conclusions drawn yesterday may have to be abandoned today, and so on, without end in sight. The core virtue of geographical reasoning is not certainty, but adaptability. As the world changes, so do geography’s entertained beliefs about how to improve it. The point we are trying to make is that an alternative window into the nature of geographical reasoning, besides the one provided by the discipline’s key concepts, offers an opening toward the more subtle problematic of the mechanisms by which the updating of geographical beliefs operate.

In the current literature about Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) it is usual to treat it both as a synonym of ‘Abduction’ (or at least, intimately related with peircean Abduction) and as encompassing non-deductive inference. However, Peirce not only distinguished between abduction, induction, and deduction, he did it in the framework of a very peculiar idea of experience, in which ‘experience’ is understood as future-action-oriented, rather than past-cumulative-data, more proper of the empiricist tradition. As a consequence, these two philosophical attitudes have a very different understanding on the role of evidence in the inferences. The purpose of this presentation is twofold. On one hand, to propose three criteria to distinguish between Peircean Abduction and Induction and to explain the role that Peirce’s ideas of experience and evidence have in them. On the other hand, to contrast these criteria and philosophical framework with those proposed by contemporary IBE’s theorists.

Philosophers know a great deal about how reasoning can go wrong but very little about what can go wrong with the conclusions that philosophers try to establish by their reasonings.  It is Stove’s great merit that he tackles the latter problem directly, though a certain dogmatism in his approach and a contemptuous attitude towards the ‘great’ philosophers have almost certainly led to a neglect of his work.

This paper inquires into the appropriateness of the label ‘neo-positivist’ that he applies to his own position and considers his view that there are probably, but not certainly, innumerable ways in which a philosophical claim can be wrong, mistaken, untrue, absurd even.  An attempt is made to relate our lack of knowledge here to the Chomsky/McGinn thesis that there may be kinds of problem with which the human intellect is just not equipped to deal.

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism being false: if evil is evidence against God, then seeing no justifying reason for some particular instance of evil must be evidence for it truly being pointless. I think this dialectic is mistaken. In this paper, after drawing a lesson about fallibility and induction from the preface paradox, I argue that the force of the evidential problem of evil is compatible with sceptical theism being true. More exactly, I argue that the collection of apparently pointless evil in the world provides strong evidence for there being truly pointless evil, despite the fact that seeing no justifying reason for some particular instance of evil is no evidence whatsoever for it truly being pointless. I call this result the paradox of evil.

The paper shows how error statistical theory can be deployed to grasp the deeper epistemic logic of the peer-review process. The intent is to provide the readers with a novel lens through which to make sense of the practices of academic publishing.