350d, Posted for: Whole Community
Going Deeoer--Inferences
Posted by: James Brent
{"ops":[{"insert":"This discussion had as its chief organizing ideas an exploration of the concept of inferences within the framework of the elements, and how inferences relate to assumptions and information.\n\nThere were many parts of the discussion that were insightful from my perspective, but the three that stand out to me are the notions that inferences can be conclusions, but they can also be steps in the process of reaching conclusions. This goes back to the element of purpose--it might be that the conclusion is the ultimate purpose, but inferences may provide the stepping stenes on the way to it, and each one is a minor purpose to itself. \"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.\"--but the journey involves a lot of individual steps and each one must be taken separately.. Secondly, interpretation is a critical aspect of making inferences (and the notion of interpretation helps us understand that each inference we draw involves a choice which derives from our interpretation of information). The third insight is that assumptions imply the necessary information to make inferences, even if we do not have conscious awareness of that information.\n\nA number of questions arise from the discussion. One relates to my own field of history. History is all about interpretation, but the discussion suggests that there is a \"chicken and egg\" problem. Which comes first, the interpretation and then the inferences based upon it, or the inferences which then give rise to the interpretation? The latter would seem the most proper, but is not an initial interpretation assumed in order to help make at least tentative inferences? Another question is that, even though we shouldn't simply ask students to make inferences, we must ask students to make reasonable inferences which imply the fundamental awareness of how inferences are made? And finally, the part of the discussion involving the classical method of making inferences had the notion of the syllogism very clearly embedded in it. (Major premise--Noon is lunchtime. Minor premise--It is noon. Conclusion--It is lunchtime.) Is not this classical method built into the standard of \"logic\" and therefore an essential part of the larger theoretical structure? \n"}]}
Posted by: Gerald Nosich
{"ops":[{"insert":"Hi James,\nThe three insights you derived strike me as excellent. Each of them sang out for me because of the precision of your language. The analogy (illustration) of a journey of a thousand miles captures it well.\n\tAbout your second paragraph: (a) As I see it there is no "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"general"},{"insert":" answer to which comes first. In one situation, the interpretation gives rise to the inference, and in another situation the reverse occurs. Churchill famously "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"interpreted"},{"insert":" Italy as the soft belly of Europe (not an interpretation that seems at all apt to me--a very long and well fortified peninsula seems almost the opposite of a soft belly) and "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"inferred"},{"insert":" that that's where the invasion took place. But "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"interpreting"},{"insert":" Italy as the soft belly is also an "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"inference"},{"insert":" he made based in part on seeing the problems inherent in invading France.\n\tWhy this interdependence occurs is the result of the fact that our minds are constantly awash with both inferences and interpretations (as well as with assumptions, purposes, information, and so forth), all of them interacting almost continuously with one another. In analysis, we separate them out and are able to focus on certain of them explicitly.\n\t(b) This is a standard conclusion many people come to with respect to classical logic, but I think it's highly misleading and even damaging to reasoning. (I can hardly find a single example, outside of math, where syllogistic reasoning ever leads us to an insight that ewe didn't already have. That's because, in syllogisms, the conclusion is already \"contained\" in the premises. I already know that Socrates is a man. The syllogism isn't a help in finding that out. One thing I want from a real, practical logic is a way of figuring out what is likely to be true.\n"}]}