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19243 | If each inference slightly reduced our certainty, science would soon be in trouble [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Were every probable inference less certain than its premises, science, which piles inference upon inference, often quite deeply, would soon be in a bad way. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV) | |
A reaction: This seems to endorse Aristotle's picture of demonstration about scientific and practical things as being a form of precise logic, rather than progressive probabilities. Our generalisations may be more certain than the particulars they rely on. |