If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quakes like a duck, then it probably is a duck .
Inductive reasoning is defined as “the reasoning which the premises seek to supply strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion ”. It is not rare that we use inductive reasoning in our daily lives, we predict the future events based on past experiences. For example if a lady goes to an Italian restaurant every Monday for lunch, the next Monday at lunch time, you will probably expect to see her eating in the restaurant; I pass by a bakery and the bread smells good, before I buy the bread, my friend says “wait, the bread might poison you”, I reply, I have never been poisoned by bread that smells good, so this one would not poison me either . …show more content…
However, Williams proposed a solution to the problem. In The Ground of Induction, he made use of the probability theory and treats inductive inference as a special case of the problem of validating sampling techniques. What our observations of the natural world provide us with can be regarded as samples form larger populations .
David Stove in The Rationality of Induction states that it is a statistical truth that the great majority of the possible subsets of specified size are similar to the large population to which they belong. If you find yourself with such a subset then the chances are that this subset is one of the ones that are similar to the population. Therefore you are justified in concluding that it is likely that this subset matches the population reasonably closely. You are justified to think that it is probably that as long as your do not think your sample is not representative …show more content…
(first-level can be justified by second-level, and second-level can be justified by third-level and so on and so forth). But it leads to infinite regress, and also miss the point: whether the premise of an inductive argument ever warrants its conclusion, regardless of the subject matter of argument.
The problem of induction goes from “we are not able to review all so the result is not secured”, to Hume’s justification of induction; and from Hume’s old problem of induction, to the confirmation of induction. But the problem of induction remains unsolved even though it has been through all the debates. And here I want to argue that the problem of induction today, the problem goes all the way back to the very beginning: we are not confident establish the reasoning based on few particulars, however we are not capable of verifying every single
Inductive reasoning is defined as “the reasoning which the premises seek to supply strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion ”. It is not rare that we use inductive reasoning in our daily lives, we predict the future events based on past experiences. For example if a lady goes to an Italian restaurant every Monday for lunch, the next Monday at lunch time, you will probably expect to see her eating in the restaurant; I pass by a bakery and the bread smells good, before I buy the bread, my friend says “wait, the bread might poison you”, I reply, I have never been poisoned by bread that smells good, so this one would not poison me either . …show more content…
However, Williams proposed a solution to the problem. In The Ground of Induction, he made use of the probability theory and treats inductive inference as a special case of the problem of validating sampling techniques. What our observations of the natural world provide us with can be regarded as samples form larger populations .
David Stove in The Rationality of Induction states that it is a statistical truth that the great majority of the possible subsets of specified size are similar to the large population to which they belong. If you find yourself with such a subset then the chances are that this subset is one of the ones that are similar to the population. Therefore you are justified in concluding that it is likely that this subset matches the population reasonably closely. You are justified to think that it is probably that as long as your do not think your sample is not representative …show more content…
(first-level can be justified by second-level, and second-level can be justified by third-level and so on and so forth). But it leads to infinite regress, and also miss the point: whether the premise of an inductive argument ever warrants its conclusion, regardless of the subject matter of argument.
The problem of induction goes from “we are not able to review all so the result is not secured”, to Hume’s justification of induction; and from Hume’s old problem of induction, to the confirmation of induction. But the problem of induction remains unsolved even though it has been through all the debates. And here I want to argue that the problem of induction today, the problem goes all the way back to the very beginning: we are not confident establish the reasoning based on few particulars, however we are not capable of verifying every single