Thought-Culture; Or, Practical Mental TrainingAtkinson, William Walker
Science
Thought-Culture; Or, Practical Mental Training
Atkinson, William Walker
Thought and thinking
Halleck says of Deductive Reasoning: "After induction has classified
certain phenomena and thus given us a major premise, we proceed
deductively to apply the inference to any new specimen that can be shown
to belong to that class. Induction hands over to deduction a ready-made
major premise, _e.g._ '_All scorpions are dangerous_.' Deduction takes
this as a fact, making no inquiry about its truth. When a new object is
presented, say a possible scorpion, the only troublesome step is to
decide whether the object is really a scorpion. This may be a severe
task on judgment. The average inhabitant of the temperate zone would
probably not care to risk a hundred dollars on his ability to
distinguish a scorpion from a centipede, or from twenty or thirty other
creatures bearing some resemblance to a scorpion. Here there must be
accurately formed concepts and sound judgment must be used in comparing
them. As soon as we decide that the object is really a scorpion, we
complete the deduction in this way:--'_All scorpions are dangerous_;
_this creature is a scorpion_; _this creature is dangerous_.' The
reasoning of early life must be necessarily inductive. The mind is then
forming general conclusions from the examination of individual
phenomena. Only after general laws have been laid down, after objects
have been classified, after major premises have been formed, can
deduction be employed."
What is called _Reasoning by Analogy_ is really but a higher degree of
Generalization. It is based upon the idea that if two or more things
resemble each other in many particulars, they are apt to resemble each
other in other particulars. Some have expressed the principle as
follows: "Things that have some things in common have other things in
common." Or as Jevons states it: "The rule for reasoning by analogy is
that if two or more things resemble each other in many points, they will
probably resemble each other also in more points."
This form of reasoning, while quite common and quite convenient, is also
very dangerous. It affords many opportunities for making false
inferences. As Jevons says: "In many cases Reasoning by Analogy is found
to be a very uncertain guide. In some cases unfortunate mistakes are
committed. Children are sometimes killed by gathering and eating
poisonous berries, wrongly inferring that they can be eaten, because
other berries, of a somewhat similar appearance, have been found
agreeable and harmless. Poisonous toadstools are occasionally mistaken
for mushrooms, especially by people not accustomed to gather them....
There is no way in which we can really assure ourselves that we are
arguing safely by analogy. The only rule that can be given is this,
_that the more things resemble each other, the more likely is it that
they are the same in other respects, especially in points closely
connected with those observed_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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