PHI 1101 Lecture 11: Inductive Reasoning

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 1101
• Professor: Jon Charles Miller

Document Summary

Second argument: dan could be a police officer. Just being armed doesn"t mean dan is dangerous. But in the first one, if the premises are true, conclusion must be true. Takes us to two general forms of reasoning: deductive and non deductive arguments. In deductive arguments, the premises are meant to guarantee the conclusion 100% It is an argument intended to provide logically conclusive support for its conclusion; not a matter of degree, but a final, definitive, undeniable support. Deductive arguments are characterised as valid or invalid. Everyone in the yard yesterday was exposed to the virus, and you were there then. That means you were exposed to the virus. Deductive reasoning can generate knowledge that seems to be new, but this knowledge is usually implicit in our current knowledge. It means that the conclusion is implicit in the premises. New knowledge, especially in sciences, rely mostly upon non deductive reasoning.