From: Wayne Hayes (wayne@cs.toronto.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 12 1997 - 10:18:15 MST
I thought that my previous message might be clarified a bit if I formalized
it a bit. The formal generalization of "All men are mortal; Socrates is
a man; therefore Socrates is mortal" is
(A) for all x in the set S, property P(x) holds.
(B) y is in the set S.
(C) property P(y) holds.
The process of concluding (C) from (A) and (B) is called deduction.
The process of hypothesizing the existence of a universal law (A) from
many observations of (B) and (C) is called induction.
The process of hypothesizing (B) from the knowledge of (A) and the
observation (C) is called abduction.
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