PP201 Chapter Notes -Miasma Theory, John Stuart Mill, Billiard Ball
Document Summary
Previously we noted that there are two basic categories of reasoning, namely, deductive and inductive. Last week we looked at deductive reasoning, now we turn to consider inductive reasoning. To recapitulate the main points already mentioned about inductive reasoning: Sometimes we can confidently infer a conclusion from some set of premisses even though it does not logically or formally follow from them. The inference in such cases is said to be ampliative, that is, we infer more than the premisses formally allow us to. Every emerald that has ever been observed is green. The conclusion to this argument is very probably true, but it is not conclusive in the sense that it must follow. It is at least logically possible that we might one day observe a blue emerald, say. However, the conclusion can be confidently inferred from the evidence of all observations of emeralds hitherto.
