The Elements of Inductive Logic, Designed Mainly for the Use of Students in the Universities

by Thomas Fowler

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1876 ... / CHAPTER VI. On the Fallacies incident to Induction. THE errors incidental to inductive reasoning and to its various subsidiary processes have already, to a great extent, been noticed in the preceding chapters. In laying down the conditions essential to the correct conduct of a process, the mistakes which result from its incorrect conduct necessarily form part of our enquiry. Though, therefore, it may be convenient to pass the inductive fallacies in review, it is assumed that the student is already acquainted with the principal errors to which his processes and methods are liable. A. To begin with the subsidiary processes, the errors incident to the process of observation, or 'the fallacies of mis-observation,' are well classified by Mr. Mill as those which arise from Non-observation and those which arise from Mal-observation. I. Non-observation may consist either (i) in neglecting some of the instances, or (2) in neglecting some of the circumstances attendant on a given instance. (1) With respect to the non-observation of instances, it was long ago pointed out by Bacon' that there is in the human mind a peculiar tendency to dwell on affirmative and to overlook negative instances. Familiar examples of this tendency will readily occur to every one. We think it a ' curious coincidence ' that we should suddenly meet a man of whom we have just been talking, that some event should happen of which we dreamed the night before, or that the predictions of a fortune-teller or an almanac should be verified by the facts. The explanation of these 'curious coincidences' is that our attention is arrested by the affirmative instances, whereas the numberless instances in which there is no correspondence between the one set of facts and the other altogether escape our notic...

94 pages, Paperback

Published February 9, 2012

About the author

Thomas Fowler was an English academic and academic administrator, acting as President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
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