Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Two Ways of Understanding

We have two basic approaches for how we come to believe something is true.

The first way is that we are exposed to several different examples of a situation, and
from those examples, we conclude a general truth. For instance, you visit your local
grocery store daily to pick up necessary items. You notice that on Friday, two weeks
ago, all the clerks in the store were wearing football jerseys. Again, last Friday, the
clerks wore their football jerseys. Today, also a Friday, they’re wearing them again.
From just these observations, you can conclude that on all Fridays, these
supermarket employees will wear football jerseys to support their local team.

This type of pattern recognition, leading to a conclusion, is known as inductive

reasoning.

Knowledge can also move the opposite direction. Say that you read in the
news about a tradition in a local grocery store, where employees wore
football jerseys on Fridays to support the home team. This time, you’re starting from
the overall rule, and you would expect individual evidence to support this rule. Each
time you visited the store on a Friday, you would expect the employees to wear
jerseys.

Such a case, of starting with the overall statement and then identifying examples that
support it, is known as deductive reasoning.
The Power of Inductive Reasoning

You have been employing inductive reasoning for a very long time. Inductive
reasoning is based on your ability to recognize meaningful patterns and connections.
By taking into account both examples and your understanding of how the world
works, induction allows you to conclude that something is likely to be true. By using
induction, you move from specific data to a generalization that tries to capture what
the data “mean.”

Imagine that you ate a dish of strawberries and soon afterward your lips swelled.
Now imagine that a few weeks later you ate strawberries and soon afterwards your
lips again became swollen. The following month, you ate yet another dish of
strawberries, and you had the same reaction as formerly. You are aware that swollen
lips can be a sign of an allergy to strawberries. Using induction, you conclude that,
more likely than not, you are allergic to strawberries.

Data: After I ate strawberries, my lips swelled (1st time).

Data: After I ate strawberries, my lips swelled (2nd time).

Data: After I ate strawberries, my lips swelled (3rd time).

 Additional Information: Swollen lips after eating strawberries may be a sign of an
allergy.

Conclusion: Likely I am allergic to strawberries.

Inductive reasoning can never lead to absolute certainty. Instead, induction allows you to say
that, given the examples provided for support, the claim more likely than not is true. Because
of the limitations of inductive reasoning, a conclusion will be more credible if multiple lines of
reasoning are presented in its support.

The results of inductive thinking can be skewed if relevant data are overlooked. In
the previous example, inductive reasoning was used to conclude that I am likely
allergic to strawberries after suffering multiple instances of my lips swelling. Would I
be as confident in my conclusion if I were eating strawberry shortcake on each of
those occasions? Is it reasonable to assume that the allergic reaction might be due
to another ingredient besides strawberries?

This example illustrates that inductive reasoning must be used with care. When
evaluating an inductive argument, consider

 the amount of the data,

 the quality of the data,
 the existence of additional data,
 the relevance of necessary additional information, and
 the existence of additional possible explanations.

Inductive Reasoning Put to Work

A synopsis of the features, benefits, and drawbacks of inductive reasoning can be

found in this video.

Inductive Reasoning
I. Definition
Inductive reasoning, or induction, is one of the two basic types of inference.
An inference is a logical connection between two statements: the first is
called the premise, while the second is called a conclusion and must bear
some kind of logical relationship to the premise.
Inductions, specifically, are inferences based on reasonable probability. If
the premise is true, then the conclusion is probably true as well. This is in
contrast to deductive inferences, in which the conclusion must be true if the
premise is.
Examples
 Premise: Every day so far, the sun has risen in the East and set in the West.
 Conclusion: The sun will probably continue to rise in the East and set in the West.
  Premise: Every time I use the can opener, my cat comes running into the kitchen.
 Conclusion: The cat probably thinks I am opening a can of tuna or wet food.

 Premise: Ben has visited four places today, and Sam has gone to those places soon
after.
 Conclusion: Sam is probably following Ben.

Often, Inductive reasoning produces a general conclusion from a specific

premise. They start with particular observations of a pattern, and then
infer that there’s a general rule. For example, everyone knows the general
rule in Example #1: the sun always rises and sets the same way. That rule
is based on a huge accumulation of data points, not on a mathematical
“proof” or derivation from other abstract rules. This is a common feature
of inductions, but it isn’t always present (for example, #2 is not deriving a
general rule).

II. Inductive reasoning vs. Deductive reasoning

Unlike inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, or deduction, is based on
absolute logical certainty. If the premise is true, there’s no way for the
conclusion not to be true. Deduction is the basis for mathematics, but is
also used in formal statements such as definitions or categorizations.
Exmaples
Premise: 2+2=4
Conclusion: 4-2=2

Premise: All gorillas are primates, and Koko is a gorilla.

Conclusion: Koko is a primate.

Premise: The cat always comes running when I ring this bell, and she
isn’t coming.
Conclusion: I haven’t rung the bell.
Although deductive reasoning is logically certain, they do not provide new
information. In each of these examples, the conclusion is already
contained in the premises; the conclusion is just another way of stating the
premise. Thus, inductive reasoning is often more useful in science and
everyday life because they allow us to generate new ideas about the world,
even if those ideas are based on probability rather than certainty.
In addition, deductions are sometimes misleading in their certainty. That’s
because the conclusion will only be true if the premise is true, and in the
real world things are usually too messy for that. For example, in the third
example we can be absolutely certain of the conclusion if the premise is
true; but are we sure that it is? There are probably no actual cats who are
so reliable that we can say they will always behave a certain way.
Learning Objective(s)
 Identify and provide examples of inductive reasoning.

Introduction

Inductive reasoning is a sophisticated mathematical tool, yet we've all been using it since
we were babies! When we use inductive reasoning, we use our experiences and
observations to draw conclusions about what will happen in the future. The first several
times we dropped something as a child, the object fell to the floor. Eventually, we decided
this pattern would continue, no matter what the object was: things fall down. Inductive
reasoning is a great way to discover new things in mathematics, too. But is it still that
simple?

Generalizing and Making Conjectures

We'll start by looking for patterns in a diagram. Let's try to predict what the next three figures
will be in this sequence:

To answer this, we have to take several steps, steps which make up the inductive reasoning
process.

1. First, observe the figures, looking for similarities and differences. In the example,
there are two colors, red and blue, and they alternate. Also, all of the figures are
triangles that appear to be the same size and shape, just turned differently.

2. Next, generalize these observations. When we generalize, we take observations

about a few examples and assume that every other example will work the same. In
this case, generalizing means we assume that the patterns will continue—for
example, that the colors will continue to be red and blue, and that they will continue
to alternate.

3. Then, we form a conjecture. A conjecture is an attempt to make a conclusion about

examples based on our generalization. Conjectures haven’t been proven to be right
or wrong, and as long as we’re not just making a wild guess, all conjectures are
worth thinking about. In this example, we can conjecture about the color and
orientation of triangles we can't yet see.

4. Finally, in some situations, we can apply your conjecture to make a prediction about
the next few figures. We might predict the next triangles will be blue, then red, then
blue again. If we did, we'd be right. Here are the next three figures in the pattern:

Circular Reasoning
circulus in demonstrando
 (also known as: paradoxical thinking, circular argument, circular cause and consequence,
reasoning in a circle)

Description: A type of reasoning in which the proposition is supported by the premises, which
is supported by the proposition, creating a circle in reasoning where no useful information is
being shared. This fallacy is often quite humorous.

Logical Form:

X is true because of Y.

Y is true because of X.

Example #1:

Pvt. Joe Bowers: What are these electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: They're... what they use to make Brawndo!

Pvt. Joe Bowers: But why do they use them to make Brawndo?

Secretary of Defense: [raises hand after a pause] Because Brawndo's got electrolytes.

Explanation: This example is from a favorite movie of mine, Idiocracy, where Pvt. Joe Bowers
(played by Luke Wilson) is dealing with a bunch of not-very-smart guys from the future. Joe is
not getting any useful information about electrolytes, no matter how hard he tries.

Example #2:

The Bible is the Word of God because God tells us it is... in the Bible.

Explanation: This is a very serious circular argument on which many people base their entire
lives. This is like getting an e-mail from a Nigerian prince, offering to give you his billion dollar
fortune -- but only after you wire him a “good will” offering of $50,000. Of course, you are
skeptical until you read the final line in the e-mail that reads “I, prince Nubadola, assure you that
this is my message, and it is legitimate. You can trust this e-mail and any others that come from
me.” Now you know it is legitimate... because it says so in the e-mail.

Exception: Some philosophies state that we can never escape circular reasoning because the
arguments always come back to axioms or first principles, but in those cases, the circles are very
large and do manage to share useful information in determining the truth of the proposition.

Tip: Do your best to avoid circular arguments, as it will help you reason better because better
reasoning is often a result of avoiding circular arguments.

References:

Fallacies | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy

Practical Reason
First published Mon Oct 13, 2003; substantive revision Wed Mar 26, 2014
Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the
question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses.
First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is
also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself
directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two
sets of philosophical problems. First, there are questions about how deliberation can
succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents
and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that
deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension
of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a
form of reasoning? Second, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards
that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action
are binding on us as agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about
our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms
yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in
sections 1–3 of the present article, while sections 4–5 cover the second set of issues.

 1. Practical and Theoretical Reason

 2. Naturalism and Normativity
 3. Reasons and Motivation
 4. Instrumental and Structural Rationality
 5. Maximizing Rationality
 6. Consequentialism, Value, and Moral Reason
 Bibliography
 Academic Tools
 Other Internet Resources
 Related Entries

1. Practical and Theoretical Reason

Practical reason defines a distinctive standpoint of reflection. When agents deliberate
about action, they think about themselves and their situation in characteristic ways. What
are some of the salient features of the practical point of view?
A natural way to interpret this point of view is to contrast it with the standpoint of
theoretical reason. The latter standpoint is occupied when we engage in reasoning that is
directed at the resolution of questions that are in some sense theoretical rather than
practical; but how are we to understand this opposition between the theoretical and the
practical? One possibility is to understand theoretical reflection as reasoning about
questions of explanation and prediction. Looking backward to events that have already
taken place, it asks why they have occurred; looking forward, it attempts to determine
what is going to happen in the future. In these ways, theoretical reflection is concerned
with matters of fact and their explanation. Furthermore it treats these issues in impersonal
terms that are accessible (in principle) to anyone. Theoretical reasoning, understood along
these lines, finds paradigmatic expression in the natural and social sciences.
Practical reason, by contrast, takes a distinctively normative question as its starting point.
It typically asks, of a set of alternatives for action none of which has yet been performed,
what one ought to do, or what it would be best to do. It is thus concerned not with matters
of fact and their explanation, but with matters of value, of what it would be desirable to
do. In practical reasoning agents attempt to assess and weigh their reasons for action, the
considerations that speak for and against alternative courses of action that are open to
them. Moreover they do this from a distinctively first-personal point of view, one that is
defined in terms of a practical predicament in which they find themselves (either
individually or collectively—people sometimes reason jointly about what they should do
together).
There is, however, a different way of understanding the contrast between practical and
theoretical reason, stressing the parallels rather than the differences between the two
forms of reflection. According to this interpretation, theoretical reflection too is
concerned with a normative rather than a factual question, namely with the question of
what one ought to believe. It attempts to answer this normative question by assessing and
weighing reasons for belief, the considerations that speak for and against the particular
conclusions one might draw about the way the world is. Furthermore, it does this from a
standpoint of first-personal reflection: the stance of theoretical reasoning in this sense is
the committed stance of the believer, not the stance of detached contemplation of one's
beliefs themselves (Moran 2001). Seen in this way, the contrast between practical and
theoretical reason is essentially a contrast between two different systems of norms: those
for the regulation of action on the one hand, and those for the regulation of belief on the
other.
Theoretical reason, interpreted along these lines, addresses the considerations that
recommend accepting particular claims as to what is or is not the case. That is, it involves
reflection with an eye to the truth of propositions, and the reasons for belief in which it
deals are considerations that speak in favor of such propositions' being true, or worthy of
acceptance. Practical reason, by contrast, is concerned not with the truth of propositions
but with the desirability or value of actions. The reasons in which it deals are
considerations that speak in favor of particular actions being good, or worthy of
performance in some way. This difference in subject matter corresponds to a further
difference between the two forms of reason, in respect of their consequences. Theoretical
reflection about what one ought to believe produces changes in one's overall set of
beliefs, whereas practical reason gives rise to action; as noted above, it is practical not
only in its subject matter, but also in its issue.
Two observations should be made about this way of understanding practical reason. First,
the contrast just drawn might suggest that there is a categorial difference in the
consequences of theoretical and practical reason, insofar as the former produces changes
in our mental states, whereas the latter gives rise to bodily movements. But it would be
misleading to contrast the two kinds of rational capacity in these terms. Practical
reasoning gives rise not to bodily movements per se, but to intentional actions, and these
are intelligible as such only to the extent they reflect our mental states. It would thus be
more accurate to characterize the issue of both theoretical and practical reason
as attitudes; the difference is that theoretical reasoning leads to modifications of our
beliefs, whereas practical reasoning leads to modifications of our intentions (Harman
1986, Bratman 1987).
Second, it is important to be clear that in neither case do the characteristic modifications
of attitude occur infallibly. There is room for irrationality both in the theoretical and the
practical domain, which in its strongest form involves a failure to form the attitudes that
one acknowledges to be called for by the considerations one has reflected on. Thus a
person might end up reading a mystery novel for another hour, while at the same time
judging that it would be better on the whole to go back to work on their paper for the
upcoming conference. Practical irrationality of this latter kind is known as akrasia,
incontinence, or weakness of will, and its nature and even possibility are traditional
subjects of philosophical speculation in their own right. If we assume that this strong kind
of practical irrationality is possible, however, then we must grant that practical reason is
not automatically practical in its issue. A more accurate way to represent the
consequences of practical reason would be to say that deliberation about action generates
appropriate intentions insofar as an agent is rational (Korsgaard 1996a).

2. Naturalism and Normativity

The connection of practical reason with intentional action raises large questions about its
credentials as a capacity for genuine reasoning. As noted above, intentional action is not
mere bodily movement, but reflects a distinctive attitude of the agent's, viz., intention. To
be in this kind of mental state is to have settled on a plan which one seeks to realize
through one's action. Intention seems in this respect to be strikingly unlike belief.
Propositional attitudes of the latter sort have a representational function; they aim to fit
the way the world is, so that if one discovers that the world is not how one previously
took it to be, one will acknowledge pressure to modify one's belief in the relevant
dimension (pressure to which one will respond if one is not irrational). With intentions
however things seem crucially different in this respect (Smith 1987). The intention to go
shopping on Wednesday, for instance, is not a state that would or should be abandoned
upon ascertaining or confirming that one has not (yet) gone shopping on Wednesday;
rather a person with such an intention will ordinarily try to bring the world into alignment
with the intention, by going shopping when Wednesday comes around. Intentions are in
this way more like an architect's blueprints than like sketches of an already-completed
structure (Anscombe 1957; compare Velleman 1989).
Reflection on this contrast between belief and intention has led some philosophers to ask
whether practical reason might not be something of a misnomer. The difficulty, in a
nutshell, is to make sense of the suggestion that a genuinely rational process could by
itself generate states with the peculiar function of intentions. Reason seems a capacity for
cognitive operations, whereas intentions are distinctively noncognitive states, insofar as
they do not aim to reflect independent facts of the matter about the way things happen to
be in the world.