Does inductive reasoning lead to knowledge?
in [Logic]
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From: John Stafford on 17 Dec 2009 19:38 In article <doraymeRidThis-C0EF07.10531318122009(a)news.albasani.net>, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > In article > <b85434a6-05e4-4809-b12e-32297fe43d3c(a)2g2000prl.googlegroups.com>, > Patricia Aldoraz <patricia.aldoraz(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Perhaps you misunderstand how difficult the essential heart of the > > problem of induction is? If you think fuzzy logic addresses the > > problem, and I am not ruling out that this might be an interesting > > avenue to explore, enlighten us all on how it solves the problem. > > The idea of a logic is that it involves some degree at least of > necessity, of force. What do you mean of necessity/force? > Fuzzy logic or probability logic is not obviously > helpful to supply this logical force (though it may well be a productive > line of enquiry). What is your expectation of the result of a 'logical force'? > Perhaps somewhat promising is some idea of multi > valued truth where nothing is necessarily true or false. Multi-valued truth is nonproductive in any particular case.
From: dorayme on 17 Dec 2009 20:26 In article <daniel_t-463130.16364717122009(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>, "Daniel T." <daniel_t(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > Logic and mathematics are formal systems, their axioms are true by > definition and everything else is deductively derived from those axioms. When an early man brings back two speared animals and another man brings back three and there is no dispute about this but someone remarks that one person brought back one more than the other, there are no axioms in sight but there is a solid reasoning involved. But if a native comes in with a brown dead animal never seen before and another with another brown one of the same type... it does not look too much like reasoning to me for one of them to conclude that all those animals are brown (not even probably). -- dorayme
From: dorayme on 17 Dec 2009 20:29 In article <daniel_t-88C9F5.16422717122009(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>, "Daniel T." <daniel_t(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > Michael Gordge <mikegordge(a)xtra.co.nz> wrote: > > On Dec 14, 7:17 am, "Daniel T." <danie...(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > > > > > Everything we know about reality is ultimately inductive. > > > > Example? > > Think of something you know, maybe something about sheep... There is > your example. You mean anything that is known? Like that some sheep have nice warm coats of wool. And this is an example of what? -- dorayme
From: Les Cargill on 17 Dec 2009 20:31 dorayme wrote: > In article <daniel_t-EABA81.20233714122009(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>, <snip> > > But arguments in logic or mathematics do not seem to me to have > inductive elements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction <snip> -- Les Cargill
From: dorayme on 17 Dec 2009 20:54
In article <hgem2f$toi$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Les Cargill <lcargill99(a)comcast.net> wrote: > dorayme wrote: > > In article <daniel_t-EABA81.20233714122009(a)earthlink.us.supernews.com>, > <snip> > > > > But arguments in logic or mathematics do not seem to me to have > > inductive elements. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction > > <snip> > > -- > Les Cargill Crucial from that URL is: "Mathematical induction should not be misconstrued as a form of inductive reasoning, which is considered non-rigorous in mathematics (see Problem of induction for more information). In fact, mathematical induction is a form of deductive reasoning and can be quite rigorous." (btw, your signature is malformed and does not get cut out whan a newsreader goes to reply - as it should. See "The formatting of the sig block is prescribed somewhat more firmly: it should be displayed as plain text in a fixed-width font (no HTML, images, or other rich text), and must be delimited from the body of the message by a single line consisting of exactly two hyphens, followed by a space, followed by the end of line ..." at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block> ) -- dorayme |