This gave me a better understanding of Logical fallacies.
Philosophers distinguish between two types of argument: deductive and inductive. For each type of argument, there is a different understanding of what counts as a fallacy.
Deductive arguments are supposed to be water-tight. For a deductive argument to be a good one (to be “valid”) it must be absolutely impossible for both its premises to be true and its conclusion to be false. With a good deductive argument, that simply cannot happen; the truth of the premises entails the truth of the conclusion.
The classic example of a deductively valid argument is:
(1) All men are mortal.
(2) Socrates is a man.
Therefore:
(3) Socrates is mortal.
It is simply not possible that both (1) and (2) are true and (3) is false, so this argument is deductively valid.
Any deductive argument that fails to meet this (very high) standard commits a logical error, and so, technically, is fallacious. This includes many arguments that we would usually accept as good arguments, arguments that make their conclusions highly probable, but not certain. Arguments of this kind, arguments that aren’t deductively valid, are said to commit a “formal fallacy”.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
in regards to deduction, what Professor said will always resonate with me. Remembering he said that all premises on deductive arguments were deduced using inductive reasoning, in a theoretical sense deduction seems not necessarily tangible outside applied mathematics.
ReplyDeleteAnd in regards to theory. people have compared science to religion in the sense that informed people are as interested and obsessed with sentient concepts of certainty as much as those obsessed with some mystical architect.
the book uses boyle's law as an example saying that the inference based on a furture assumption is inductive because perhaps this theory will not continue to hold true.
Theory is to the best extent inwhich masters of the field have perceived to be the most fundamental and or consistent laws of governing the observed field's functioning.
What is the truth of Deduction?
Can people prove or even perceive real deduction yet?
or are we inherently limited to inductions based on natural perceptional limitations?
This is an old problem, raised in the 18th century by David Hume. Unsurprisingly, philosophers call it 'the problem of induction.' There is a large and fairly technical literature dealing with it, but in general I think it is a solvable problem; induction is not impossible or meaningless.
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