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Revision as of 16:14, 6 August 2011
, 16:14, 6 August 2011→4.3.3.2. Inquiry: + raw text
=====4.3.3.2. Inquiry=====
=====4.3.3.2. Inquiry=====
<pre>
Returning to the "Rainy Day" story, we find our hero presented with a surprising Fact:
C => A, "in the Current situation the Air is cool". (Fact)
Responding to an intellectual reflex of puzzlement about the situation, his resource of common knowledge about the world is impelled to seize on an approximate Rule:
B => A, "just Before it rains, the Air is cool". (Rule)
This Rule can be recognized as having a potential relevance to the situation because it matches the surprising Fact, C => A, in its consequential feature A. All of this suggests that the present Case may be one in which it is just about to rain:
C => B, "the Current situation is just Before it rains". (Case)
The whole mental performance, however automatic and semi conscious it may be, that leads up from a problematic Fact and a knowledge base of Rules to the plausible suggestion of a Case description, is what we are calling abductive inference.
The next phase of inquiry uses deductive inference to expand the implied consequences of the abductive hypothesis, with the aim of testing its truth. For this purpose, the inquirer needs to think of other things that would follow from the consequence of his precipitate explanation. Thus, he now reflects on the Case just assumed:
C => B, "the Current situation is just Before it rains". (Case)
He looks up to scan the sky, perhaps in a random search for further information, but since the sky is a logical place to look for details of an imminent rainstorm, symbolized in our story by the letter B, we may safely suppose that our reasoner has already detached the consequence of the abductive Case, C => B, and has begun to expand on its further implications. So let us imagine that the up looker has a more deliberate purpose in mind, and that his search for new data is driven by the new found, determinate Rule:
B => D, "just Before it rains, Dark clouds appear". (Rule)
Contemplating the assumed Case in combination with this new Rule would lead him by an immediate deduction to predict an additional Fact:
C => D, "in the Current situation Dark clouds appear". (Fact)
The reconstructed picture of reasoning assembled in this second phase of inquiry is true to the pattern of deductive inference.
Whatever the case, our subject observes a Dark cloud, just as he would expect on the basis of the new hypothesis. The explanation of imminent rain removes the discrepancy between observations and expectations and thereby reduces the shock of surprise that made this inquiry necessary.
</pre>
====4.3.4. Details of Induction====
====4.3.4. Details of Induction====
