Ron,
I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the term deduction. The process involved, I believe, the observation of facts, the building of a hypothesis from those facts, and the extending of observations based on the assumption that the hypothesis was true so as to confirm it by the accumulation of further evidence. What is so puzzling is that even the first observations seem not to be made in a vacuum; they seem already to have required some assumptions to be made. This focusing of attention to certain details is the role of hypothesis. The construction of various experiments so as to produce further facts as evidence is, I think, where the real sleuthing came to the fore. There seems in this paradigm to be no room for induction as a separate mode of reasoning.
Bruce
>>> Ronald Sheen <[log in to unmask]> 09/27/07 8:56 PM >>>
Many thanks, Bruce. Historical background always provides enlightenment.
So now then, does Sherlock induce or deduce?
Ron Sheen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce D. Despain" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 3:04 AM
Subject: Re: Not so elementary, my dear Watson.Re: Inductive - Deductive:was
New discussion intelligence and grammar learning
> Ron,
>
> This extract from my introduction to grammar on the role of hypothesis may
> be helpful:
>
> Induction. The 17th Century philosopher, Francis Bacon, extended the
> set of acceptable tools of rational thought when he pointed out how
> investigators infer a scientific theory from the observed facts whenever
> they generalize. Generalization is the logical process of induction from a
> number of specific instances. Suppose scientists make the "same"
> observation a number of times. After so many observations they feel they
> are entitled to conclude (with some degree of certainty) that they are
> observing the effects of some general principle. (This kind of induction
> is distinct from what mathematicians know as induction. These people
> define mathematical induction with statements about numbers that make it
> for them in actuality an extension of deduction.) Bacon maintained that
> support for facts could come by both deduction and induction.
>
>
> Logical induction vs. deduction. In the mid-18th Century David Hume,
> clearly demonstrated the fact that Bacon's brand of logical induction
> cannot strictly qualify as a mode of reasoning. In order to establish
> induction on a basis as secure as deduction, philosophers are obliged to
> accept the validity of the conclusion (the general principle) to the same
> extent as the assumption. Only then would they be able to infer the
> conclusion with the same certainty as the assumptions.
>
>
> Inference. Inference by induction is a way of connecting
> experience - of making sense out of a collection of observations. The
> general principle that the investigator induces is the result of numerous
> confirmations of a hypothesis with failure to disconfirm it. It was Karl
> Popper, who in modern times was responsible for the rejection of induction
> as a mode of reasoning (Popper, 1972). Popper emphasized strongly that
> induction is actually quite the equivalent of hypothesis and experiment.
> Bruce
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ronald Sheen" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 9:49 AM
> Subject: Not so elementary, my dear Watson.Re: Inductive - Deductive:was
> New discussion intelligence and grammar learning
>
>
>> Johanna's example of Holmes deducing something or other illustrates how
>> tricky the pair of words is. On the one hand, he brings together a set
>> of facts and induces therefrom a conclusion as in 'I see, my dear fellow,
>> from your rough hands, your rasping cough, your wheezing and the coal
>> dust in your eyes that you are a miner.' On the other hand, stretching
>> it a bit, I suppose one could say that Holmes has a set of rules of thumb
>> such as 'rough hands come from manual work' and 'a rasping cough and
>> wheezing' is a symptom of miners. He then applies them to the facts
>> before his eyes and ears and draws together the conclusions from which he
>> induces...Then again, maybe he deduces...
>>
>> This is probably why in applied linguistics the terms 'implicit' and
>> 'explicit' have replaced the troublesome pair.
>>
>> Ron Sheen
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>>
>>
>
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