Socratic Logic - Induction

Introduction

The following are the notes I have taken from Peter Kreeft's wonderful Socratic Logic textbook. I highly recommend you buy it. This is a book which deals with classical logic (as opposed to modern symbolic logic.) It is easily the best overall book on logic I have ever read and one of the few I have that are worth making notes from. I even have a small duotang with these notes in it I can carry around and reference on a regular basis.

Inductive arguments do not claim to prove their conclusions with certainty, only with probability.  Usually discovered by sense experience.

Induction is usually reasoning from the particular to the universal (not always to universal though.)  Similar to process of abstraction (leads us from sensory awareness of particular things to an intellectual awareness of a universal nature or essence.)

Six different kinds of induction:

A. Generalization from Experience

B. Arguments to Establish A Cause

C. Scientific hypothesises

D. Arguments from Statistical Probability

E. Arguments from Analogy

F. A Fortini or A Minore Arguments