Inductive reasoning starts from particular premises to reach a general conclusion.
When a person reflects, organizes their ideas and reaches a conclusion, they will have developed reasoning . Depending on the type of mental process carried out, it is possible to differentiate between different types of reasoning.
Inductive , on the other hand, is what is linked to induction (the process that leads to obtaining a general conclusion from specific or particular premises).
What is inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning , therefore, consists of considering several individual experiences to extract from them a broader and more general principle . It is important to keep in mind that, despite starting from true premises, the conclusion may turn out to be false. That inductive reasoning leads to a true conclusion is just a probability, the degree of which varies according to the number of premises considered and their characteristics.
An example of inductive reasoning is the following: “Lionel Messi is Argentine and plays soccer / Sergio Agüero is Argentine and plays soccer / Gonzalo Higuaín is Argentine and plays soccer / All Argentines play soccer.” As can be seen, inductive reasoning is valid, but its conclusion is false (not all Argentines play soccer ).
In other cases, inductive reasoning can lead to a true conclusion: “Laura threw herself into the sea and came out of the water wet / Carlos threw herself into the sea and came out of the water wet / Marcela threw herself into the sea and came out of the water wet / All the “People who jump into the sea come out of the water wet.”
At first glance, it is correct to affirm that inductive reasoning can be considered opposite to deductive reasoning, in that the latter starts from a general premise to arrive at a particular conclusion. Likewise, in neither case does the validity of the premises condition the truth value of the conclusion.
Inductive reasoning can be valid and yet reach a false conclusion.
Bacon's contributions
This method of modern philosophy originated in the " Novum organum ", the most important work of Francis Bacon (see image), a 16th century British philosopher, who believed that science was a technique that gave human beings the power to dominate nature . This book, which was published in 1620, shortly before his death, is also known by the title " Indications relating to the interpretation of nature ."
In " Novum organum ", Francis Bacon seeks to systematically show how important the inductive argument is to form scientific knowledge, thus opposing the deductivism, which prevailed in his time. To do this, he begins by explaining the concept of induction based on the thought of Aristotle, according to whom it was "a transition that takes us from the individual to the universal."
Bacon delves into this definition, explaining that the objective is to achieve the axioms on which correct reasoning is based, starting from particular events and the senses , rising progressively and continuously to finally find the most general principles , something that -adds - had not yet been tried, even if it was the right path.
Elements of inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning is the method that Bacon believed useful to discover the arts and sciences, and to do so he assured that it is necessary to analyze nature , eliminating and excluding as the case may be, to find, after having found a sufficient number of negative facts, the affirmative ones.
The three elements of Bacon's method for applying inductive reasoning are the following: the presence table , where the facts in which the phenomenon is evident are listed, trying to show a great variety to maximize the vision of the study; the absence table , where those events in which the phenomenon is not present are collected; the degree table , which shows the events in which the phenomenon appears, with different intensities.