Inductive

Logic

Messiah Paranthaman Kaliyaperumal

University of Dayton
PHL 302 Symbolic Logic
 Overview
 Inductive Logic
 Biography of Mill
 Mill’s Methods
– Method of agreement
– Method of Difference
– Joint method of agreement & difference
– Method of residues
– Method of concomitant variation
 Critique of Mill’s Methods
 Induction
 Inductivearguments (or simply
induction)
– Reasoning from particular cases to
general conclusions.

 Causal inductive arguments

– Special type of induction in which the
premises suggest the conclusion that
there is a causal relation between two
properties or factors.
 Cause?
A variable, some of whose values bring
about or increase the value of the effect
variable
 Two more specific notions of cause:
– The cause is sufficient to bring about the
effect
– The cause is necessary to bring about the
effect
 Neither
works completely, but each is
suggestive of important features of
Sufficient causes
Examples of factors sufficient to
bring about an effect
– Dead battery is sufficient for car not
starting
– Ingesting (enough) hemlock is sufficient for
dying
– Placing water in a normally operating
freezer is sufficient for it freezing
– Increased exercise without eating more is
sufficient for weight loss
The value of sufficient
causes
A sufficient cause gives us a guidelines for
producing an effect we want
– If you don’t want someone to drive your car,
totally run down the battery
– If you want to loose weight, exercise
 “Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the
feeling passes away.”
 - Robert M. Hutchins, former President of the
University of Chicago
 I have never taken any exercise, except for sleeping and
resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is
loathsome.
 - Mark Twain, Essays: Seventieth Birthday
The difficulty with sufficient
causes
For many conditions in
which you think you have
found a sufficient cause,
an exception can be
found
– If you take an antidote with
your hemlock (should one
be found), you might
escape death
– If you put salt in the water,
it may not freeze even
when temperature is less
than 320 F
 Necessary causes
Something that is necessary to
produce an effect:

– Oxygen is necessary for burning

– Herpes zoster is a necessary cause of
chickenpox
– Early exposure to language is necessary
for normal language development
The value of necessary
causes
Provide a way of preventing
something

– Eliminating oxygen does stop

fires
– Not having Herpes zoster in
you prevents chickenpox
 Key concepts
 Necessary cause of e: a causal factor that is present in
all cases of an effect e.

 Sufficient cause of e: a causal factor that guarantees

the existence of effect e.

 Central factor of e: The factor that made the biggest

difference to e’s occurring.

 Causal relate may be singular events, properties, or

variables

 The deterministic principle: The same causal

antecedents produce the same effects

– Underlies Mill’s 5 Methods.

John Stuart Mill
“John Stuart Mill was the most
influential English-speaking
philosopher of the 19th
century. His views are of
continuing significance, and
are generally recognized to
be among the deepest and
certainly most effective
defenses of a liberal
political view of society and
culture. The overall aim of
his philosophy is to develop
a positive view of humans’
place in the universe, one
which contributes to the
progress of knowledge,
individual freedom, and
human well-being.”
 John Stuart Mill
 Born 1806, to James
Mill, economist and
psychologist
 Learns Greek by age
3, Latin by age 8
 By age 14, has read
almost all the classical
texts
 Raised among some of
the most prominent
intellectual radicals of
the day (notably,
Jeremy Bentham)
John Stuart Mill
 At age 22, gains post
in East India Company
 Has nervous
breakdown at age 24
 Overcomes
breakdown at age 26,
and throws himself
into attempts to
reform society
 Serves as member of
Parliament in his 60s
 Dies 1873
 Mill’s Books
 System of Logic
 Principles of Political
Economy
 On Liberty
 Utilitarianism
 On the Subjection of
Women
 Considerations on
Representative
Government
 Three Essays on Religion
 Autobiography
 Mill’s Five Methods
 Method of Agreement
 Method of Difference
 Joint Method of Agreement
and Difference
 Method of Residues
 Method of Concomitant
Variation
Method of Agreement
“If two or more instances of
the phenomenon under
investigation have only one
circumstance in common, the
circumstance in which alone
all the instances agree, is the
cause (or effect) of the given
phenomenon.”
 Method of Agreement

 Ifthere is only one common condition A

for all cases resulting in a, then A is a
cause of a.
 Form:
A B C D occur together with a b c d.
A E F G occur together with a e f g._____
Therefore A is cause (or the effect) of a
A is a necessary cause of a.
Illustration of Method of
Agreement
 Find cases in which the effect has occurred
– Determine if there is only one thing that they
all share
– If there is, that is (the likely) cause

 Example: some cities have markedly lower

rates of tooth decay
– If fluoride in the water is the only (potentially
relevant) thing in common, then it is the likely
cause
Method of
Agreement
 Table for Method of
Agreement
Salad Soup Pork Illness
Roi Yes Yes Yes Yes
Kumar Yes No Yes Yes

Joy No Yes Yes Yes

Suman No Yes Yes Yes
 Table for Method of
Agreement
Salad Soup Pork Illness
Roi Yes Yes Yes Yes
Kumar Yes No Yes Yes
Joy No Yes Yes Yes
Suman No Yes Yes Yes
Method of Difference
“If an instance in which the
phenomena under investigation
occurs and an instance in which it
does not occur, have every
circumstance in common save
one, that one occurring only in the
former, the circumstance in which
alone the two instances differ, is
the effect, or the cause, or an
indispensable part of the cause, of
 Method of Difference
 If the only difference between cases
is the condition A and the result a,
then A caused a.
 Form:
A B C D occur together with a b c d;.
B C D occur together with b c d;______
Therefore, A is causally connected to a.
 A is a sufficient cause of a.
 Method of Difference
 Find two things that differ in that one has
the effect and the other doesn’t
– If there is only one factor on which they differ,
that is the likely cause

 Example: four people apply for a loan, and

only two get it
– The only difference is that the one who was
denied once declared bankruptcy
– The declaration of bankruptcy is the likely
cause of the loan being turned down
 Table of Method of
Difference
  College Earn Rs. Own Declared Loan
Education 400 Business Bankruptcy Approved

Rai Yes Yes No Yes No

Dung Yes Yes No No Yes

Ashok Yes Yes No No Yes

Joy Yes Yes No Yes No

Method of Difference
 The Example of Yellow
Fever
 Once Walter Reed
suspected mosquitoes as
the transmitter of yellow
fever
 He had one set of
volunteers sleep on the
soiled clothes and beds of
yellow fever patients in a
room screened so that no
mosquitoes could get in.
 None of these people
contracted the disease.
The Example of Yellow
Fever
 He had another group
of volunteers stay
completely away from
sick patients, except
he let mosquitoes
that had been
allowed to feast first
on people sick with
the disease bite the
patients.
 These volunteers did
get sick.
 Joint method of
agreement and
difference
 If A is present in otherwise diverse cases
exhibiting a result x, and is absent in
otherwise similar cases not resulting in x,
then A caused x.
 Form:
A B C occur together with x y z.
A D E occur together with x t v; B C, with just y
and z._
Therefore, A is causally connected to x.

 A is both a necessary and sufficient cause of

Joint method of agreement
and difference
The methods of agreement and
difference can be used jointly:

– Find something in common amongst all

cases where the effect appears
– Find matches for all these cases except
that they lack the effect and the
common ingredient
Joint method of agreement
and difference
Example: Five factory workers are
found to be inefficient relative to
others who are doing the same work.
– The efficient workers and the inefficient
workers were found to be similar in all
relevant ways except one: the inefficient
were not part of a profit sharing plan.

Conclusion: profit sharing causes

efficiency.
Method of Residues
“Subduct form any
phenomenon such part as is
known by previous inductions
to be the effect of certain
antecedents, and the residue
of the phenomenon is the
effect of the remaining
antecedents.”
 Method of Residues
 Isolate known causes from unknown
causes to discern the specific contribution
x of a specific causal factor A to a causal
system.
 Form:
– A B C occur together with x y z.
– B is known to be the cause of y.
– C is known to be the cause of z.
– Therefore A is causally connected to x.
 Illustration Method of
Residues

Suman Dungdung steps on a scale

carrying a dog. The scale reads
125 Kg.
Suman knows that he weighs 95
Kg.
Therefore, the dog weighs 30 Kg.
 Method of
Concomitant Variation
“Whatever phenomenon varies
in any manner whenever
another phenomenon varies in
some particular manner is
either a cause or an effect of
that phenomenon or is
connected with it through
some fact of causation.”
 Method of
Concomitant Variation
 Ifchanging the value of one causal
factor A changes the value of a
resulting condition x, then A is
causally connected to x.
 Form:
– A B C occur together with x y z.
– A∆ B C occur together with x ∆ y z.
– A is causally connected with x.
Illustration for Method
of
Concomitant Variation
A former establishes that therer is a
causal connection between the
application of fertilizer to his ground
and the harvest.
 A business man verifies the efficacy
of advertising by running larger and
smaller advertisements at different
intervals.
 Attractions of Mill’s
Methods
 Nicelycaptures the reasoning in
controlled experiments and
everyday causal reasoning

 Describes how our background

beliefs restrict our conclusion
 What is Mill saying?
 Once you have identified the reasonable
candidate causes, correlation (of a simple
matching sort) can isolate the actual cause
 Assumption behind Mill’s methods: one and only one factor
is the cause, and it is one you have considered: - the
Scientific Drinker drank scotch and soda on the first night
and became drunk. On the second night, he drank brandy
and soda and became drunk again. On the third night, he got
drunk on bourbon and water. He therefore decided that the
soda was the cause of his getting drunk because it was the
common element each time. He swore a solemn oath that
never to touch soda again!
 Mill’s Methods:
probability, but
not Definitive
As the previous example shows, Mill’s
methods do not always correctly
identify the cause

– Something might correlate with the

effect but not be the cause

– The causal structure might be complex,

involving interactions of multiple factors
 Mill’s Methods:
probability, but
not Definitive
 Nonetheless, Mill’s methods are
useful in clarifying parts of our
understanding of cause

 The development of modern

statistics came after Mill and
provided a much more potent tool for
identifying the factors Mill was
seeking to identify
 Mill’s Methods: probability,
but
not Definitive
 To make a correct analysis requires
previous knowledge of causal laws,
which must have been discovered by
means other than Mill’s Methods.
 Mill’s Methods are not sufficient
instruments for discovery, because their
successful use requires a proper analysis
of the factors of the antecedent
circumstances, and the Methods
themselves do not tell how to distinguish
 Summary
 Inductive Logic
 Causal Connections
 Biography of Mill
 Mill’s Five Methods:
– Agreement, Difference, Joint, Residues,
and Concomitant Variation
 Critique of Mill’s Methods
– Strengths
– Weaknesses
 Dr. Rani Thanikachalam
Thanks Libin Tete
Norendro Nayak
Roshan Dang
Roy Cheriyan Mylamvelil
Vinod V.T
Rajmohan. C
Suman Dungdung
Ashok Kumar Dung Dung
Kumarasamy Kambhampati
Jesuraj. U

Presented by
Messiah Paranthaman Kaliyaperumal