Inductive VS Deductive.

Ehhh. I’d say your professor did not choose his examples well. Those two arguments are barely different. Certainly not distinctive enough to say one is deductive and the other inductive. Though yeah, I’d say B is a little more deductive than A but ONLY because of the kind of language used…not the arguments. The best trick I learnt to easily distinguish them was deductive simmers down while inductive steams away (creating a broader conceptual conclusion). It’s not precise but it helps in principle. B slightly simmers down an argument (though its based itself on an inductive premise which is explained within the argument for some reason) while A seems to both simmer and steam away. I don’t think either of these examples are particularly representative of inductive or deductive arguments and I’d even say that both of them are a little ambiguous. Especially A. Could you give us another example from the exercises they gave you?

Yes indeed, an argument could be sound but still be false.

• All round metal objects are coins
• Washers are round metal objects
• Therefore washers are coins.

The argument is sound because the conclusion logically follows from the premises. However one of the premises is not the case (all round metal objects are coins) and therefore we cannot use this conclusion through the means of those premises or this type of argument. You’d have to prove or falsify this conclusion by other arguments or other means.

And argument can be sound, yet based on a false premise, and yet still be the case. My favorite example is something like this:

• All white animals are mammals
• Polar bears are white
• Therefore polar bears are mammals.

The argument is sound (because the conclusion logically follows from the two premises). And the conclusion is also true (we know that polar bears are mammals because they lactate and have distinctive body parts). However one of the premises is not the case (that all white animals are mammals) as there are white birds, insects and fish as well as albino reptiles etc. And so while the argument is sound, yet one premises is not the case…the conclusion still turns out to be the case which is an important lesson in the study of fallacies. The fallacy fallacy. Just because the argument is fallicious doesn’t mean the conclusion is not the case. I personally think its the most important fallacy, more than straw manning or red herring or a fallacy (or fallicious form of arguing) which is common these days: the gish gallop and closely related sea-lioning. The internet comment sections, facebook commentary and tweets, especially on political topics are utterly overflowing with falicious content. There is just so much bad argument out there it’s a wonder we maintain a stable democracy despite our lack of reasoning skills. Which is why I basically avoid twitter and comment sections cause, you can only bear so much nonsense.

Have fun studying them. Critical thinking rocked my world when I studied it.

Yes indeed…I totally screwed up on my conflation of sound Vs. valid argument which likely confused you so that’s my fault.  In the texts I wrote you should substitute sound with valid.

Valid = logically follows

Sound = yes yes yes

I understand (most) of the subject, but I’m blocking once I need to write about it.

When we don’t yet fully understood a topic we can use the Feynman Technique which is a great way to master any topic so you will not have to relearn it in the future, just quickly revise it a day or two before an exam.

Here is a  synopsis of each of the 3 forms of reasoning discussed earlier. As well as the term “abductive” mentioned by Unseen, I would recommend introducing some (or all) of these “causal reasoning fallacies” into your paper. A good one to be able to spot is the “Non-Sequitur” (which I find I use a lot when confronting the poorly constructed arguments of theists).

PS I have a video with Feynman in Sunday School this week.