{"id":9890,"date":"2012-03-03T05:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/03\/03\/ockham-and-induction\/"},"modified":"2012-03-03T05:00:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T05:00:35","slug":"ockham-and-induction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/03\/03\/ockham-and-induction\/","title":{"rendered":"Ockham and Induction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed of Beyond Necessity<\/em> reports<\/a> that he has translated some chapters on induction from Ockham's Summa Logicae<\/em>. He goes on:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ockham says that induction "is a progression from singulars to the universal", which is pretty much the modern understanding of the term.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That is not wrong, but it is not quite right either.  On a well-informed modern understanding induction need not involve "a progression from singulars to the universal."<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose that every F I have encountered thus far is a G, and that I conclude that the next F I will encounter will also be a G. This is clearly an inductive inference, but it is one that moves from a universal statement to a statement about an individual. The inference is from Every F thus far encountered is a G<\/em> to The next F I will encounter will be a G.<\/em>  So it is simply not the case that every inductive inference proceeds from singular cases to a universal conclusion. Some such inferences do, but not all.  This is a common misunderstanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is also a mistake to think that deduction always proceeds from the universal to the singular.  See On Falsely Locating the Difference Between Deduction and Induction.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed of Beyond Necessity reports that he has translated some chapters on induction from Ockham's Summa Logicae. He goes on: Ockham says that induction "is a progression from singulars to the universal", which is pretty much the modern understanding of the term. That is not wrong, but it is not quite right either.  On a … Continue reading “Ockham and Induction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-logica-docens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}