Inference
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Generalizations and analogies help us understand how the world is. But what if we want to know why the world is that way? What causes the world to be the way it is? That calls for a different kind of inductive reasoning: reasoning about causation. We’ll take a very brief dip into these very deep
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With certainty off the table for inductive arguments, we speak not of validity or invalidity, but rather of strength or weakness. Here are five key factors to consider in evaluating the strength of any analogy.
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Some people “get” analogies easily; others don’t–and the people who “get” them often don’t know where to start in explaining them to the others. So here’s a basic explanation of analogies: why we use them, how they work, and how they sometimes fail.
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I generalize a lot, and so do most people I know. Probably everyone generalizes a lot. So it makes sense for us to examine generalizations in some detail.
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Most of our attention so far has been on deductive reasoning. It’s time now to learn about inductive reasoning, which is indispensable for sound thinking generally and is especially important in the field of science.
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Now that we know about enthymemes–arguments with fewer than two lines–let’s learn how to string many syllogisms together into polysyllogisms.
Logic Lectures 