The Elements Of Inductive Logic: Designed Mainly For The Use Of Students In The Universities - Softcover

Thomas Fowler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0461442388 ISBN 13: 9780461442380

Publisher: HardPress, 2019

Synopsis

The Elements Of Inductive Logic: Designed Mainly For The Use Of Students In The Universities by Thomas Fowler. This influential 19th-century work systematizes the theory and practice of induction, explaining how knowledge about unobserved cases can be inferred from observed cases. Fowler distinguishes inductive inference from deduction, and presents the five main inductive methods: the Method of Agreement, the Method of Difference, the Double Method of Agreement (or Agreement and Difference), the Method of Residues, and the Method of Concomitant Variations. The text also treats observation and experiment, classification, nomenclature, terminology, and the role of hypotheses, and discusses imperfect inductions, such as inductions by enumeration and analogy. It elaborates how inductions relate to deductions, how to verify inductive conclusions, and what fallacies may distort inductive reasoning, including non-observation, mis-observation, and false analogy. Although written in the Victorian era, the work remains a foundational discussion of scientific method, uniformities of nature, universal causation, and the conditions under which reasonable inference is justified. It is a landmark in the history of logic and the philosophy of science.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0461442388
• ISBN 13: 9780461442380
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408