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Single Idea 16843

[filed under theme 14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction ]

Full Idea

The Method of Difference, and even the full four 'experimental methods' (Difference, Agreement, Residues and Concomitant Variations) are agreed on all sides to be incomplete accounts of inductive inference. Mill himself added the Method of Hypothesis.

Gist of Idea

Mill's methods (Difference,Agreement,Residues,Concomitance,Hypothesis) don't nail induction

Source

report of John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.14.4-5) by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 08 'Improved'

Book Ref

Lipton,Peter: 'Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd ed)' [Routledge 2004], p.126

A Reaction

If induction is just 'learning from experience' (my preferred definition) then there is unlikely to be a precise account of its methods. Mill seems to have done a lovely job.

Related Ideas

Idea 16805 Causal inference is by spotting either Agreements or Differences [Mill, by Lipton]

Idea 16835 The Methods of Difference and of Agreement are forms of inference to the best explanation [Mill, by Lipton]

The 27 ideas with the same theme [obtaining general truth from many instances]:

5854 Nobody fears a disease which nobody has yet caught [Aristotle]
12271 Induction is the progress from particulars to universals [Aristotle]
5714 Even simple facts are hard to believe at first hearing [Lucretius]
17027 Science deduces propositions from phenomena, and generalises them by induction [Newton]
7446 The idea of inductive evidence, around 1660, made Hume's problem possible [Hume, by Hacking]
16845 The whole theory of induction rests on causes [Mill]
16843 Mill's methods (Difference,Agreement,Residues,Concomitance,Hypothesis) don't nail induction [Mill, by Lipton]
8624 Induction is merely psychological, with a principle that it can actually establish laws [Frege]
8626 In science one observation can create high probability, while a thousand might prove nothing [Frege]
22200 If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
16941 Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine]
16940 Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine]
6955 Enumerative induction is inference to the best explanation [Harman]
7369 Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett]
16804 Induction is repetition, instances, deduction, probability or causation [Lipton]
9163 If we only use induction to assess induction, it is empirically indefeasible, and hence a priori [Field,H]
6352 Enumerative induction gives a universal judgement, while statistical induction gives a proportion [Pollock/Cruz]
15708 Inductive success is rewarded with more induction [Gelman]
16254 Induction leaps into the unknown, but usually lands safely [Maudlin]
4584 The problem of induction is how to justify our belief in the uniformity of nature [Baggini /Fosl]
18690 Induction is said to just compare properties of categories, but the type of property also matters [Murphy]
14953 Induction is reasoning from the observed to the unobserved [Ladyman/Ross]
22176 Induction is inferences from examined to unexamined instances of a given kind [Okasha]
18609 Psychologists use 'induction' as generalising a property from one category to another [Machery]
18610 'Ampliative' induction infers that all members of a category have a feature found in some of them [Machery]
14551 If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum]
14571 The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum]