Inductive logic is the logic of scientific discovery. In deductive inferences, the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows from the truth of the premises but the conclusion’s content is at least implicitly included in the premises’ content. In non-deductive (hence, also inductive) inferences, the truth of the conclusion is only probable given the truth of the premises, but the conclusion’s content exceeds that of the premises. The course starts by discussing the difference between deduction and induction and then the discussion proceeds to the problem of induction and its solution, difference between observation and experiment, different kinds of induction, postulates of induction, J S Mills five methods for discovering causal connections between phenomena and the fallacies of induction are the major themes of discussion in the course.
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