When we reason, we use inferences. In philosophy, where people like to order and categorize things, there are three types of inferences: deduction, induction, abduction. We all use them daily (especially the last two), but we do not always realize what they are, how they work, and what are their strengths and weaknesses. Recently, I …
Continue reading Spreading the Word: Deduction, Induction, Abduction?
Our universe could have developed in a great number of different ways. Yet, it developed in such a way that allowed complexity and, in time, life to emerge. How so? For what reason? And, perhaps more importantly - why does it matter to even think about such things? Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay People have …
In the last week's article about deductive and inductive arguments, I mentioned something called Hume's dilemma. In this article, I discuss it in more detail. Here is a short recap of the main idea - the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume presented the scientific (and philosophical) community with a challenge: he claimed that …
Last year I wrote two short articles about philosophical arguments - one about what they are and the other about how to evaluate them. This time, I look at two arguably best-known types of arguments and offer their brief introduction - deductive and inductive arguments. Both names refer to the structure of your argument, how …
In the last article I briefly described what a 'philosophical argument' means. This article continues on this, so far, short series and looks at how we can assess the quality of an argument and what it means to say that an argument is valid or sound. As often is the case, it starts with some …
Continue reading Philosophical Argument – how to evaluate its quality?
In this article, I would like to explore what is a philosophical argument and what it is made of. It is worth clarifying that by 'argument' I do not mean an angry exchange of accusations or any other type of emotionally heated conflict. So, for starters, we should be clear about what philosophical argument is …
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