TCS 152 Notes

        

Class Conversations Followups

Oct 17: Environmental Art and Eco-Action
Oct 10: Machines and Metaphor

Oct 3: Rosalind Franklin and DNA

Definitions:

INDUCTIVE Logic (Reasoning)
A reasoning process where general conclusions are made from the accumulation individual examples and instances.
Relations of Ideas:
A proposition expresses a relation of ideas if and only if its denial is strictly impossible or self- contradictory. All triangles have 3 sides; all bachelors are unmarried.
Unobserved Matters of Fact: How do we form opinions about something which cannot be observed directly? For example, how do we know a wool sweater is warm when put on? Or a snowball is cold? We add up experiences: the last snow was cold, this one should be also. "All beliefs about unobserved matters of fact are derived from experience by induction." Generalizations constructed in this way might still be incorrect, if there were to be an exception. from Hume (from http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/induction.html)
If it is true that scientists rely to a great deal upon Inductive logic, what are the some of the implications?

DEDUCTIVE Logic
A particular accumulation of facts leads to a conclusion which must be true.
All birds have wings.
A cardinal has wings.
A cardinal must be a bird.