SCORECARD! Can't tell the players without a scorecard!

[Roger Bissell]

Reasonable generalizations are formed by hypothesizing causal connection, but there's no way to be sure you've hypothesized correctly -- though you can establish that a prediction has failed.

Ellen. That's the Popper line. If you completely ignore all the information your concepts are made of (including hierarchies) and limit yourself to range-of-the moment observations with random hypotheses as your base standard, this observation holds (even applied to itself).

It is not a "Popper Line". It is the way of the physical sciences. Hypotheses are tested and -retested- when new technology of observation becomes available. That is how it was discovered that Newton's Law of Gravitation is not generally true. When telescopes became good enough to resovle very small angular displacements the motion of Mercury could not be accounted for by Newton's Law.

Hypotheses can be falsified by adverse factual observations but no hypothesis can be guaranteed true everywhere and always. There are always new facts being found and there is no assurance whatsoever that some new fact will not confound a heretofore well supported theory. No scientific hypothesis is safe from potential falsification. No scientific hypothesis cames with a forever and always guarantee of correctness. That is what makes science different from religion.

Before Popper and independent of Popper scientists were falsifying theories based on adverse observations. Popper's fight was with the Positivists who believed it was possible to -verify- a scientific theory forever and always with a sufficient number of supporting observations. Popper was fighting the Verificationists who believe it is possible to prove a scientific theory true once and for all. Newton's theory was falsified long before Popper began publishing. The theory of caloric (heat is a fluid) was falsified in the 19th century long before Popper was born. The Aether hypothesis was falsified by Michelson and Morley (although Michelson did not believe so), long before Popper. James Clerk Maxwell who made important contributions to the theory of heat and thermodynamics sounding a warning alarm concerning specific heat in the late 1860's. He was right. Planck undermined theories based on the continuity of radiation. That is how he came to invent the quantum of energy. Equipartition of energy is just plain false, as Planck showed. There were issues in thermodynamics that were not resolved until quantum theory was developed. And all this without Popper.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You cannot legitimately cite Newton in the same breath with caloric, phlogiston, and aether theory as all being examples of "falsified" theories. Newton did something that legitimately proceeding inductive thinkers sometimes do: over-generalize. He overlooked some of the physical context of his observations. This is NOT the case with the caloric, phlogiston, and aether theories, which hypothesized causal mechanisms or substances that do not exist. Newton's theory was on the right track, and only needed to be modified to fit the actual physical context as later known -- whereas the other theories had to be jettisoned.

BTW, this is what the much-denigrated Randians refer to as a "package-deal." Lumping together essentially different phenomena, in order to throw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were. Please don't do it any more.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

When you form a concept, you have hypothesized correctly and it will hold as a classification for all instances when encountering those particular concretes. That's the Objectivist form and induction was used.

Agree or disagree, but refusing to understand this and repeating some kind of party line is getting repetitious (which is what I have been complaining about).

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

The second example I think is really bad in confusing the issue just in the way people so often confuse it...(rather than inductive inferences) both are (in fact)scientific hypotheses...(emphasis DB))

Yes, exactly.

What I'm trying to ascertain, in brief, is if Popper thought that no one ever IS illogical in method of forming generalizations.

What Popper is trying to save man from is not the possibility of irrationality, but the necessity of irrationality.

For Hume, as so many others before and after did, considered induction absolutely necessary to human epistemology. It's Hume's pyschological, not logical, problem that Popper solved.

That is:

P1: Induction is illogical

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is fundamentally irrational

Popper showed it was not necessarily so. Now, we may of course choose to think inductively if we like - that it will rain next Tuesday just because it did on the prior three Tuesdays - just as we can choose any other irrational epistemology (such as intuition, or magic spells) to guide us. Further, we can cling to our dogmatic beliefs despite the fact the Tuesday that eventually arrived was sunny, and find excuses for our theory's failure. Popper proposed that there is a better way, should we decide to take it.

Does that answer your question?

Edited September 18, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

Heh.

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Ahhhh. That's better.

(Still a bit fudged in strictly formal terms, but much better.)

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Daniel,

Heh.

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Ahhhh. That's better.

(Still a bit fudged in strictly formal terms, but much better.)

Michael

Indeed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ellen Stuttle]

(as Peikoff points out in IPP) you must remember and at least ~implicitly~ be stating as the preamble to your generalization: on the basis of the available evidence, in other words, within the context of the factors so far discovered, the following is the proper conclusion to draw [....] Certainty is contextual and readily available, so long as one does not hold out for the Platonic, incorrigeable variety.

Thus "certainty" consists in always being aware that the conclusion you draw today on the basis of your most diligent assessment of the evidence currently available might turn out tomorrow (or sooner or later) to be wrong.

Roger, also, clearly you are using a different meaning of "induction" than Hume's meaning, which is the meaning Popper was talking about. You're calling causal hypotheses "inductions." I think it would help with the discussion if you would keep in mind that causal hypotheses aren't what Daniel means by "induction." He's said what he means, borrowing the wiki wording (however leaving out the badly chosen example of theories of gravity, which aren't examples of (2) but instead of causal hypotheses):

"1. generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class of objects (for example, "All swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white", Hume's Problem of Induction, 18th century, before the discovery of Cygnus atratus in Australia); or

"2. presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past [...]."

It's these forms of generalization-formation which he's calling "induction" and is saying are invalid. Causal hypotheses are also forms of generalization-formation, but aren't what he's calling "induction." He's also saying that causal hypotheses can never be known for sure to be true. Leonard Peikoff's statement above actually agrees with this; only Peikoff calls always bearing in mind that we might not have arrived at correct causal laws "certainty."

Ellen

___

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

Nonsense, it works fine, tho if you wanted to be pedantic you can replace "irrational" with "illogical". And you do want to be pedantic....

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Of course I agree with your conclusion, and your first premise ...

The problem that we are all arguing about is not deduction vs experience, but fundamentally, "how exactly should humans best learn from experience?"

We might summarise the Popperian epistemology roughly as "imagination, severely tested by argument and experience."

Edited September 18, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Roger Bissell]

3) Can you answer whether you and Peikoff consider the standard, Humean version of induction as defined by the wikipedia et al to be deductively invalid?

(It would be nice, BTW, if you withdrew your remark about me "putting words in your mouth" as to 3) as you clearly, if accidentally, contradicted yourself in the issue. The error was not mine)

Saying that induction is not a form of deduction (as Peikoff and I do) is not the same as saying (as you assert Hume does) that induction is "deductively invalid" and/or that you cannot supply a deductive proof for it.

Hume is not even talking about the same thing that Peikoff and I are. We are saying that enumerative generalization is NOT induction. Nor is it deduction. Nor therefore is it "deductively valid."

However, we are also saying that observational-integrative generalization (as discussed and contrasted with enumeration ad irritatum already) IS induction, and that this does not purport to be a form of deduction, and that calling it "deductively invalid" is a non sequitur.

It's sporting of you to suggest a different name for the latter -- "obduction." But I think I'll stick with the one that is defined and understood as the inverse of deduction: inferring more general conclusions from more specific premises (as against inferring more specific conclusions from more general premises). Induction.

Enumeration is no more induction than mercantilism or fascism are capitalism. Dwelling on it amounts to a smear of genuine induction.

You want an apology? All right. You didn't "put words in my mouth," so I'm sorry for saying that. What I am still incensed about, though, is your continual attempts to lump me and Peikoff in with Hume, saying that "we all agree" that "induction is not deductively valid."

Imagine if I insisted on using "capitalism" to refer to predatory robber-baron, government-granted monopoly privileges, and saying that we all agree that capitalism is immoral. Arrrrrrgh!

Do you see the point here? Kind of a Catch-22, don't you think. What am I supposed to say to you about induction? Disagree and thus support an obviously non-valid form of generalization and open myself to people saying, "Bissell thinks that enumerative generalization is valid"? Agree and open myself to people saying, "Bissell agrees that induction is invalid"? Come on. I'm not ~that~ dumb.

REB

[Ellen Stuttle]

You cannot legitimately cite Newton in the same breath with caloric, phlogiston, and aether theory as all being examples of "falsified" theories. Newton did something that legitimately proceeding inductive thinkers sometimes do: over-generalize. He overlooked some of the physical context of his observations. This is NOT the case with the caloric, phlogiston, and aether theories, which hypothesized causal mechanisms or substances that do not exist. Newton's theory was on the right track, and only needed to be modified to fit the actual physical context as later known -- whereas the other theories had to be jettisoned.

BTW, this is what the much-denigrated Randians refer to as a "package-deal." Lumping together essentially different phenomena, in order to throw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were. Please don't do it any more.

There it becomes clear that you've been listening to Harriman. ;-) Yes, you can legitimately cite Newton in the same breath as the others mentioned. Also, Newton did in fact hypothesize a causal mechanism, he knew not what (the problem bothered him), a force which acts instantaneously at a distance. Einstein's theory isn't simply a modification of Newton; it's a different theory, though Newton's conclusions still hold within a range. Caloric is still used in talking about heat transfers. Aether theories have never been entirely jettisoned. Einstein didn't rule out there being an aether of some form; he just made no use of the idea of a "mechanical aether" in his theory of light. There's beginning to be some revived aether talk even now as we speak (discussions going on on a physics list I read) in connection with problems developing in cosmological theories. As my husband commented to Ed Hudgins when they got together for dinner on a trip of Larry's to D.C. (the comment was in the context of the global warming debate but it applies across the board): "In science the debate is never over."

Ellen

___

Edited September 23, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[BaalChatzaf]

Reasonable generalizations are formed by hypothesizing causal connection, but there's no way to be sure you've hypothesized correctly -- though you can establish that a prediction has failed.

Ellen. That's the Popper line. If you completely ignore all the information your concepts are made of (including hierarchies) and limit yourself to range-of-the moment observations with random hypotheses as your base standard, this observation holds (even applied to itself).

It is not a "Popper Line". It is the way of the physical sciences. Hypotheses are tested and -retested- when new technology of observation becomes available. That is how it was discovered that Newton's Law of Gravitation is not generally true. When telescopes became good enough to resovle very small angular displacements the motion of Mercury could not be accounted for by Newton's Law.

Hypotheses can be falsified by adverse factual observations but no hypothesis can be guaranteed true everywhere and always. There are always new facts being found and there is no assurance whatsoever that some new fact will not confound a heretofore well supported theory. No scientific hypothesis is safe from potential falsification. No scientific hypothesis cames with a forever and always guarantee of correctness. That is what makes science different from religion.

Before Popper and independent of Popper scientists were falsifying theories based on adverse observations. Popper's fight was with the Positivists who believed it was possible to -verify- a scientific theory forever and always with a sufficient number of supporting observations. Popper was fighting the Verificationists who believe it is possible to prove a scientific theory true once and for all. Newton's theory was falsified long before Popper began publishing. The theory of caloric (heat is a fluid) was falsified in the 19th century long before Popper was born. The Aether hypothesis was falsified by Michelson and Morley (although Michelson did not believe so), long before Popper. James Clerk Maxwell who made important contributions to the theory of heat and thermodynamics sounding a warning alarm concerning specific heat in the late 1860's. He was right. Planck undermined theories based on the continuity of radiation. That is how he came to invent the quantum of energy. Equipartition of energy is just plain false, as Planck showed. There were issues in thermodynamics that were not resolved until quantum theory was developed. And all this without Popper.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You cannot legitimately cite Newton in the same breath with caloric, phlogiston, and aether theory as all being examples of "falsified" theories. Newton did something that legitimately proceeding inductive thinkers sometimes do: over-generalize. He overlooked some of the physical context of his observations. This is NOT the case with the caloric, phlogiston, and aether theories, which hypothesized causal mechanisms or substances that do not exist. Newton's theory was on the right track, and only needed to be modified to fit the actual physical context as later known -- whereas the other theories had to be jettisoned.

BTW, this is what the much-denigrated Randians refer to as a "package-deal." Lumping together essentially different phenomena, in order to throw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were. Please don't do it any more.

REB

Newton's Law of Gravitation is wrong. It does not predict the orbit of any the planets correctly (close but not correct). It was first discovered in examining the orbit of Mercury. An anomalous precess has also been observed for Venus and even the Moon.

If you look closely at Newton's Law you will see why it is wrong. It assumes -instantaneous- gravitational interaction. We know from relativity and its many supporting experiments that interactions cannot occur instantaneously or else instant faster than light communication would be possible.

Newton's theory was not modified. It was replaced. Newton assumed Euclidean flat space. We know from experimentation that space is curved by masses. Newton's theory incorrectly predicts the amount of light bending around the Sun. It is off by a factor of two! Newton's theory of gravitation does not predict the gravitational "red shift' or time dilation. This is the heart and soul of the GPS. The GPS run in "Newtonian Mode" will give locations incorrectly by thousands of meters.

Newton based his theories on an incorrect notion of space and time. Einstein's modification are not mere corrections. They are utterly different from Newton's theory in their mathematical character and in practical terms are massively more accurate in predicting subtle gravitational effects (in particular the gravitational red shift).

Does this mean Newton's theory is useless. Not at all! in a very weak gravitational field wherein you find the outer planets, Newton's theory is just dandy for celestial mechanics and navigation. Why? Because Out Thataway, Spacetime is nearly flat.

Once again, you have let your lack of knowledge of the theory mislead you. Before you make such vehement judgments, educate yourself. Learn the math. Learn the underlying symmetries. Learn the action laws which give the field laws. Different Lagrangian, different theory.

There is no "package deal" here. There is just physics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ellen Stuttle]

What I'm trying to ascertain, in brief, is if Popper thought that no one ever IS illogical in method of forming generalizations.

What Popper is trying to save man from is not the possibility of irrationality, but the necessity of irrationality.

For Hume, as so many others before and after did, considered induction absolutely necessary to human epistemology. It's Hume's pyschological, not logical, problem that Popper solved.

That is:

P1: Induction is illogical

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is fundamentally irrational

Popper showed it was not necessarily so. Now, we may of course choose to think inductively if we like - that it will rain next Tuesday just because it did on the prior three Tuesdays - just as we can choose any other irrational epistemology (such as intuition, or magic spells) to guide us. Further, we can cling to our dogmatic beliefs despite the fact the Tuesday that eventually arrived was sunny, and find excuses for our theory's failure. Popper proposed that there is a better way, should we decide to take it.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. Thank you very much. It's the answer I thought, but somehow the snarl of words got tangled until I was left unsure if Popper had claimed that irrational methods of generalizing are never used. All clear now.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Te-he, Bob and I posted nearly simultaneously (off by a minute) on the Newton issue. He gave a lot more detail, thus taking an extra minute. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Daniel,

Heh.

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Ahhhh. That's better.

(Still a bit fudged in strictly formal terms, but much better.)

Michael

Indeed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The hell it is better. (Back up, Bob, and follow that sequence. ;-)) Daniel got it right the first time.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

MSK and Roger, something you're going to have to do if you want to be communicating is to get clear that you are using the term "induction" with a different meaning than Daniel is. Yes, it is (valid); no, it's not won't get anywhere when you aren't talking about the same referent.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

MSK and Roger, something you're going to have to do if you want to be communicating is to get clear that you are using the term "induction" with a different meaning than Daniel is. Yes, it is (valid); no, it's not won't get anywhere when you aren't talking about the same referent.

Ellen,

I have no problem with more than one definition for a word. I do have a problem when meanings are switched at random to "invalidate" Rand's theories, then the original meaning is invoked when it starts getting clear that her theories were not invalidated at all.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Daniel,

Heh.

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Ahhhh. That's better.

(Still a bit fudged in strictly formal terms, but much better.)

Michael

Indeed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The hell it is better. (Back up, Bob, and follow that sequence. ;-)) Daniel got it right the first time.

Ellen

___

Indeed, human knowledge is more than deduction. Don't you agree? Much of our knowledge comes from sweat and inspired guesswork. That is why sciences like physics cannot be reduced to mechanical procedures. Fruitful theories do not jump from piles of fact, like frogs from lily pads. Nor can reality be deduced a priori. We have to go out an look and measure.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 19, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Also, there is a little matter of concept formation (but that is not all).

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

MSK and Roger, something you're going to have to do if you want to be communicating is to get clear that you are using the term "induction" with a different meaning than Daniel is.

Well, I have said so all along, and Roger clarifies this point in his #258

"Hume is not even talking about the same thing that Peikoff and I are."

There you have it. This is one of the chief sources of confusion in this debate. And it is not just 'Daniel's meaning". Quite simply, what Objectivists call "induction" is quite different from what almost everyone else means by "induction" (Hume did not ever use the word incidentally, but the standard problem is exactly as per the wiki definitions I've cited. You can look at any textbook.) This does, by rather obvious implication, weaken if not destroy any claim therefore that Peikoff has replied to Hume.

Regrettably I have just accidentally lost a post intended to straighten this all out, and can't redo it tll later. But for now, it is hardly likely we will agree on the solution in this particular debate when we have not agreed on what the problem is.

Edited September 19, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

Also, there is a little matter of concept formation (but that is not all).

Michael

Inspired guesswork is the highest form of concept formation. Einstein's concept of gravitation is an example. It was pure genius to think of motion in a gravitational field as uncoerced motion along a geodesic in a curved spacetime manifold. Everyone else saw gravitation as a force.

It took a parachute jump to convince me. For the first few seconds in the fall I felt -nothing!- pulling me. Then I felt the force of the air acting on my body as I fell. If I were falling in a vacuum I would have felt no force whatsoever until I went splat. Einstein was right! Everyone should take at least one jump from 5000 feet. It is a rush, both literally and figuratively. The only downside (sic!) is the small chance of both the main and reserve parachutes failing. That can ruin one's day.

Astronauts in an orbiting vessel feel no force on them at all, while they are in free fall. Their vessel and their bodies are following a geodisic world line in a curved manifold. In flat space (such as Newton postulated) uncoerced motion is uniform straight line motion (Newton's first Law). It took Einstein to realize that in the presence of mass (or energy mass equivalent) spacetime is curved. As Wheeler likes to say "mass tells spacetime how to curve and curved spacetime tells mass how to move".

Now Einstein didn't jump from an airplane. He got his idea from pure imagination. Many of Einstein's best ideas was a result of pure imagination at work (in the form of gedanken experiments). It was a posteriori (Einstein needed some experience), but it was the freest of a posterior modalities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

I do have a problem when meanings are switched at random to "invalidate" Rand's theories, then the original meaning is invoked when it starts getting clear that her theories were not invalidated at all.

No doubt, therefore, you will have a problem should the same technique be applied to Hume's theories by Peikoff.

Objectivists, while they are welcome to use their own meanings for common words, did not invent the word "induction."

Edited September 19, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

Ba'al:

Indeed, human knowledge is more than deduction. Don't you agree? Much of our knowledge comes from sweat and inspired guesswork

Ba'al, I think that you, Ellen, and I are on the same page as to Mike's conclusion at least, if not all his premises or inferences

Edited September 19, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[BaalChatzaf]

Mike:

I do have a problem when meanings are switched at random to "invalidate" Rand's theories, then the original meaning is invoked when it starts getting clear that her theories were not invalidated at all.

No doubt, therefore, you will have a problem should the same technique be applied to Hume's theories by Peikoff.

Objectivists, while they are welcome to use their own meanings for common words, did not invent the word "induction."

I have proposed that Objectist prefix their peculiar locutions with a Dollar Sign. For example: "logic" means what 99 percent of the world means by logic, to wit valid inference. $logic means Rand's definition (non contradictory identification) which only Objectivists use. Ditto for "induction" and "$induction". etc. etc. etc.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ellen Stuttle]

Daniel,

Heh.

Let's try that syllogism with a small alteration to unpack a couple of words (expecially since your syllogism did not work even under its own terms):

P1: Induction is not valid deduction

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is more than deduction

Ahhhh. That's better.

(Still a bit fudged in strictly formal terms, but much better.)

Michael

Indeed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The hell it is better. (Back up, Bob, and follow that sequence. ;-)) Daniel got it right the first time.

Ellen

___

Indeed, human knowledge is more than deduction. Don't you agree? Much of our knowledge comes from sweat and inspired guesswork. That is why sciences like physics cannot be reduced to mechanical procedures. Fruitful theories do not jump from piles of fact, like frogs from lily pads. Nor can reality be deduced a priori. We have to go out an look and measure.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes, sure, I agree that human knowledge is more than deduction. But did you skip the middle premise, and the context in which Michael substituted the syllogism he gives for the one Daniel gave?

I was talking with Daniel, using Popper's meaning of "induction" (which is not the meaning MSK keeps using), and trying to find out if Popper denied that people ever do employ that procedure (in his meaning), although it isn't a valid form of seeking knowledge.

Daniel replied in part:

Hume, as so many others before and after did, considered induction [i repeat, "induction" defined as Hume and Popper defined it, not as MSK defines it] absolutely necessary to human epistemology. It's Hume's pyschological, not logical, problem that Popper solved.

That is:

P1: Induction is illogical

P2: Induction is fundamental to human knowledge

C: Human knowledge is fundamentally irrational

Popper showed it was not necessarily so.

MSK then substituted a different syllogism, using a different meaning of "induction," and then said "Ahhhh. That's better," to which you said "Indeed." But, no, it is not better; it's a switchero presented as if it were addressing what Daniel was talking about.

Understand now why I objected? But, sure, I well agree that human knowledge is more than deduction. (And Popper also agreed, emphatically and very much so.)

Ellen

___

[John Dailey]

REB:

~ You ask me, in your post #225, re my argument to DB, where I ref'd you...

...and go on to point out specifics (granted, here's where REB went wrong: using the term 'generalization', discussed on this thread by moi with RC earlier. 'Induction' and 'generalization' are not synonymous, LP's useage nwst)...

...the question: "In what way did I 'go wrong', John?"

~ Hmmm...ok; maybe you didn't; m-a-y-b-e. Depends on if you meant 'generalization' the way Robert Campbell originally did; I have a 'big' prob with that synonymizing, explainable by my clarified distinction about the non-synonymity of the two terms. RC clearly sees them as synonomous; I don't, and think that LP himself was a bit sloppy (unintendedly) in his near-equalizing of the two.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited September 19, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

REB:

~ 'Generalizing' IS a necessary/required part of 'induction', but, as per JSMill's spelling out (why am I the only one mentioning him?), not a 'sufficient' set of parts, ergo, per se, not meaningfully equivalent to it; 'generalizing', per se, is ONLY the 1st part of the whole 'criteria' of inducing. I repeat, anti-inductioners' views nwst (however pro-deduction they...arbitrarily[?] be), the 2 terms are not synonomous, however sloppily anti-inductioners try to play on equivocations re the two terms.

~ As an aside consideration: if they were, why bring up and argue about 'induction'? Why not just castigate the worth of 'generalizing' itself (as, when one 'generalizes' about the worth of...deductions, and it's necessary process: deducing [not to mention just what the criteria for determining what 'validity' is supposed to mean...without question-begging])?

LLAP

J:D

Edited September 19, 2007 by John Dailey