Talk:Inductive reasoning

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2021 and 14 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ainsmcf.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Culpable Ignorance of Aristotle

Not until my edit 1038200885 on 11 August 2021 did this article have any mention of the Posterior Analytics. The tractate of Aristotle was the first to describe the science of demonstration through inductive proof.

Therefore this article can be safely ignored, along with most modern so-called philosophy. For an introduction to the topic that is sound and coherent, try s:Posterior Analytics. And avoid the Bacon. Jaredscribe (talk) 07:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I had a quick look but made no sense of it. Maybe I have been corrupted by Russell et al. Is there a brief but accessible summary anywhere?

"Why does light pass through a lantern? Because that which consists of the smallest parts necessarily passes through the larger apertures. Thus light is produced because it passes through the lantern in this particular way, and it also has a final cause—namely to prevent us from stumbling." Djmarsay (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Edits of 19th Dec 2023

I have attempted some edits that I hope clarify and are not controversial and do not unduly alter the general 'meaning' of the article. As a mathematician who has worked with scientists (and others) I hope I have not unduly mangled any of the more philosophical content. I would be happy to review my wording.

As it now stands, the example on coin tosses seems a bit weak and maybe distracting, so I would rather omit it. I have also scanned some of the above remarks and agree that such an important subject would merit a more thorough treatment, but then we are in danger of 'original work'.--Djmarsay (talk) 20:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Any article about induction that is 'forbidden' to mention and link to abstraction, even as a see-also alone, is incompetently gatekept

Any article about induction that is 'forbidden' to mention and link to abstraction, even as a see-also link alone, is incompetently gatekept. The same is true of analogy and other see-also items that are already here. Please present here any competent counterarguments to this basic logic. If none can be adduced, then those links will be present as see-also alone (let alone competent incorporation into body text). Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Why should there be a link to "abstraction"? What is the relation of induction to it? In an earlier edit you just said "Abstraction is usually involved", which is pretty general. Can you be more specific? - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

So the question that you're asking is, "how is 'any of various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations' logically related to 'a process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples'? First just making sure I understand what the question even is. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:58, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Awaiting response; the question isn't hard to answer, unless one is trying to find some way to make the answer be "no connection" against all odds of sense or logic. Despite the fact that WP:BLUE indisputably covers putting abstraction in the see-also section (given the blueness of the green spans above), I'll cite a reference when I add it there anyway, just to dispose of this rather odd challenge. I'll do that next week, after giving due time here for any possible argument that might be adduced. If anyone can adduce one, it needs to be brought here; otherwise, citing the reference will duly satisfy WP:BRD at the "Cycle" aspect. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:21, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

It's not ever an "odd challenge" to ask for a citation before material is added to an article—that's how collaborative editing often works, no matter how BLUE one may find the material in question. Remsense诉 01:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

What made this instance odd is two aspects: (1) the degree to which it is like reverting if someone added "crabapple" to the see-also section of "apple", or an article on dogs that contained no mention or link of wolves anywhere (two topics that are indisputably somehow related in the real world but whose Wikipedia articles fail to mention or link each other at all due to inadequate development to date), and someone merely added wolf to see-also section, and it's reverted with very little explanation except "please discuss this before adding" and also "can you explain how they are related?" If that were the normal way of editing Wikipedia, WP:BOLD would not and could not even exist at all, and neither would see-also sections (at all); it is not the WP norm that an edit so basic as that cannot even be made without first asking permission or presenting an argument in favor of it at Talk. The argument in favor of it is too self-evident to require all that; the types of edits that require pre-clearance before they can be made at all are ones more in-depth than that. (2) Citations are usually not given for WP:BLUE see-also items; it is very unusual to see citations added to justify the existence (presence) of a see-also item. [In lieu of any better sentence transition here,] I'm not looking to be difficult about it, but the reason I belabored it here is that I dared not simply make the edit (with reference citation) without first saying anything here to defend it and then see it get reverted again with another inadequate explanation. Thus I made sure to painstakingly (belaboringly) explain here the plan to take the unusual step of citing a reference to justify the existence of a plainly WP:BLUE see-also link, and provide a week's notice for anyone to see if they can come up with a plausible argument for reverting it, before a reversion rather than after. This is to prevent edit warring, per spirit of WP:BRD. Predictably someone might complain that this reply is too long. That's a catch-22. Since my choices are either to belabor the explanation here or to get improperly reverted with inadequate explanation, I chose the former. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

My question ist simply what you intend to write about abstraction in the article. Just "Abstraction is usually involved" is hardly of any use for the reader. By analogy, I wouldn't like to read "Wheels are usually involved" in the article automobile. - One possibility might be to wikilink just the first appropriate occurrence of "generalization", which is (if we believe the lead of that article) more specific than "abstraction". - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 10:41, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, you're quite right about optimal writing/phrasing, and the "wheels are involved" example is a good one. I agree. In the case of see-also links specifically, the idea is that there can be a rapid de-silo-ing, and tagging of possible future deforking of accidental/unintentional forks of some aspects of topic scope, when two articles should not be entirely isolated from each other (i.e., no mention nor link anywhere) because their semantic and ontologic scope overlaps way too much for that to be OK — and to accomplish that minimum-viable degree even without spending a time sink for rewriting. The idea is to get them connected at all, as a minimum first step, and further optimization can come later. I should have just done that to begin with in this instance — the only reason I didn't is that I try to integrate such links (i.e., "wikilinks that shouldn't *not* be anywhere in this article") into article text rather than see-also when feasible without pouring lots of time into it, for various good reasons. But my lesson in this instance is that if I can't do a more convincing job of the writing rapidly, then my workable options are either (1) to stick to see-also alone or (2) to downshift into something more thorough. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 14:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Inductive logic

Given inductive logic targets here, it might be worthwhile to explicitly address the term, similarly to deductive logic. See the Plato entry for one concise definition. Tule-hog (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)