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Inductive versus deductive reasoning: how to make stronger arguments
Deductive reasoning: From theory to confirmation
Deductive reasoning starts from established facts, then applies logical steps to reach a conclusion. For example, "Bachelors are unmarried men. Jack is unmarried. Therefore, Jack is a bachelor."
Limitations:
- If the premise or the logic applied is flawed, deductive reasoning can lead to the wrong conclusions. For example, "All dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore, all dogs have four legs," is false because injury or species characteristics mean not all animals have four legs.
- It is impractical to use on a daily basis, as it requires a factual premise to start from, which we don't always have access to.
- Building a premise on an outdated hypothesis can lead to the wrong conclusion.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Jumping into Conclusions
Jumping into Conclusions: Examples
- Inference-observation confusion: An assumption made that may or may not be correct. Example: Concluding that a guy is rich, based on the car he drives.
- Fortune-Telling: Assumption of knowing exactly what will happen in the future.
- Mind Reading: Assuming based on how to have read someone's mind and concluded something which may not be true.
- Extreme Extrapolation: Finding a minor clue and making something major out of it.
- Overgeneralization: Copy-pasting a piece of knowledge over something that you think is related, but is not.
- Labeling: Stereotyping a set of people based on their likes and dislikes.
Why We Jump to Conclusions
The reason people jump to conclusions is the fact that they find it easy.
Fact-checking and 100 percent accuracy on everything they see or observe consume way too much time for a normal person.
Taking mental shortcuts is the path most people choose to jump to conclusions.
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Key Ideas
Reasons for constructing a good argument
How should we evaluate arguments that people make to persuade us? And how should we construct our own arguments to be the most effective?
At its core, an argument consists of a conclus...
Structure of a well-formed argument
It does not use reasons that contradict each other, contradict the conclusion or explicitly or implicitly assumes the truth of the conclusion. Checklist:
- Does the communication include at least one reason to support the conclusion as being true? If not, it is not an argument, but an opinion.
- Could any of the key premises be interpreted as making the same claim as the conclusion? If so, then it’s a “circular argument” without independent reason given to support the conclusion.
- Do any of the premises contradict another premise, or does the conclusion contradict any of the premises?
The relevance of a premise
A premise is relevant if it provides some bearing on the truth of the conclusion. Checklist:
- If the premise were true, does it make you more likely to believe that the conclusion is true? If yes, the premise is probably relevant.
- Even if the premise were true, should it be a consideration for accepting the truth of the conclusion? If no, then the premise is probably not relevant.
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Key Ideas
Basic structure of an argument from incredulity
Premise 1: I can’t explain or imagine how proposition X can be true.
Premise 2: if a certain proposition is true, then I must be able to explain or imagine how that can be.
It’s ok to be incredulous
... and to bring this up as part of an argument. The issue with doing so occurs when this incredulity isn’t justified or supported by concrete information, and when this lack of belief is used in order to assume that a preferred personal explanation must be the right one, despite the lack of proof.
At the same time, it’s also important to remember that it’s possible that the person using the argument from incredulity is right, despite the fact that their reasoning is flawed.
Counter the argument from incredulity
- Explain why this sort of reasoning is fallacious: namely the fact that your opponent’s inability to explain a certain phenomenon or to understand a certain theory, does not invalidate current explanations for it.
- Shift the burden of proof back to your opponent: ask them to support their initial assertion, and explain why they are incredulous, and why they think that this validates their position.
- If possible, you should show that there is scientific evidence that can be used in order to explain the phenomenon that’s being discussed.