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The problem of induction is a philosophical problem that questions the rationality of predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations. These inferences from the observed to the unobserved are known as "inductive inferences".
Scottish philosopher David Hume first formulated the problem of induction, [12] arguing there is no non-circular way to justify inductive reasoning. That is, reasoning based on inferring general conclusions from specific observations. This is a problem because induction is widely used in everyday life and scientific reasoning, e.g.,
Inductive reasoning is any of various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations. [1] [2] This article is concerned with the inductive reasoning other than deductive reasoning (such as mathematical induction), where the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, given the premises are correct; in contrast, the truth of the ...
Francis Bacon, articulating inductivism in England, is often falsely stereotyped as a naive inductivist. [11] [12] Crudely explained, the "Baconian model" advises to observe nature, propose a modest law that generalizes an observed pattern, confirm it by many observations, venture a modestly broader law, and confirm that, too, by many more observations, while discarding disconfirmed laws. [13]
It is noted that no law of science can be considered mere inductive generalization of facts because each law does not exist in isolation. [8] This is for, instance, demonstrated by thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, who maintained that inductionism is the initial act in the formulation of a general law using the deductive approaches to science. [9]
The new riddle of induction was presented by Nelson Goodman in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast as a successor to Hume's original problem. It presents the logical predicates grue and bleen which are unusual due to their time-dependence.
The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus described the problem of circular reasoning as "the reciprocal trope": The reciprocal trope occurs when what ought to be confirmatory of the object under investigation needs to be made convincing by the object under investigation; then, being unable to take either in order to establish the other, we ...
Auguste Comte found the problem of induction rather irrelevant since enumerative induction is grounded on the empiricism available, while science's point is not metaphysical truth. Comte found human knowledge had evolved from theological to metaphysical to scientific—the ultimate stage—rejecting both theology and metaphysics as asking ...