You mean like the way I keep going on about "Form of Life"? — Banno

Hmm. Maybe you really do have a problem that I haven't picked up on?

I'm going to lunch. When I get back, I expect a post that is something worth a response. — apokrisis

Yes, Sir!

X-)

Enjoy your lunch. I can't decide between poached eggs or some Thai chicken and tofu soup for breakfast. But I am going to make a zucchini slice for lunch.

In that light then, in what sense is "height" real? — apokrisis

In the sense that Uluru has a certain height, regardless of our measuring it. But that your Pragmatism cannot admit this; and so is fraught with anti-realism.

We had agreed that induction was (deductively) invalid. You didn't see that as an issue. — Banno

What's the relevance of stating the obvious fact that induction is not a deductively valid method?

What's the relevance of stating that induction is not truth preserving?

What's the relevance of stating that the following argument . . .

1. All observed As are Bs
2. Therefore, all As are Bs

. . .is such that its premise can be true and its conclusion still be false?

Noone disagrees with that.
Noone disagreed with that.

The subject has been the relevance of making such a statement.
Does it imply that there is something wrong with induction?
What does it imply?
Does it imply anything at all?

Does it imply that there is something wrong with induction? — Magnus Anderson

Yep. It implies that induction is invalid.

Yep. It implies that induction is invalid. — Banno

Not the answer that I was expecting. But it does justify every single post I wrote in response to your claim. For I was right: you do think that the fact that induction is deductively invalid (i.e. not truth-preserving) means that there is something wrong with it.

I was expecting you are going to say something along the lines that induction does not adequately represent the manner in which we naturally reason. For reasoning is, as you claim, something that cannot be captured by words, something that forever transcends them. To which I would have responded with something along the lines that every model of reality is grounded in a subset of reality and is therefore always a good candidate for being a simplification of the said reality. So there should be nothing strange when we discover that our models are not perfectly accurate; for in most instances, they were not even expected to be perfect.

n the sense that Uluru has a certain height, regardless of our measuring it. But that your Pragmatism cannot admit this; and so is fraught with anti-realism. — Banno

Rather than just answer with the same repeated misrepresentation, answer the question as it was posed. Or show where the literature of Pragmatism supports your contention of it being anti-realism as such.

So again. How is height "real" in your book. How is "height" to be understood when you are not imposing a concept involving Cartesian co-ordinates - and one presuming the Earth to be the Copernican centre of that inertial reference frame? What should "height" mean within the language game of a first Australian form of life?

Drop the evasions and misrepresenations. Just try to answer my questions honestly and directly.

To say it is true that the Eiffel Tower has a height, and that the height is 324m, is already admitting that "height" is a theoretical construct. An answer in metres - above some "foundation-line" - is only "true" because we agree that it would be a suitable response in terms of some ontological story we share through a common language, a common form of life.

Why are you not prepared to admit to this obvious epistemic fact?

So yes, we could then go on from there to discuss in what sense a model of reality based on Cartesian co-ordinates might be better than an aboriginal model that treats distances more in terms of notions of the duration of an effort.

Rather than being racist, a Pragmatic view says we can at least ask this question because "truth" in the pragmatic conception is what reason will arrive at in the fulness of time. It is what Nozick called the invariant view. We can see that some views are more subjective or observer-dependent than others. And so epistemically, we can have the goal of arriving at the view with is the most objective, or least observer-dependent as possible. Enter the justification or the scientific method.

So Pragmatism can both speak to the right of folk to construct the view of the world that they find most useful, and also still hold out the goal of moving towards a view of the world that is the most mind-independent or ontically abstracted. You can recover the Cartesian co-ordinates that you seem so attached to in the long run perhaps.

But now, once again, I'm answering my own questions, showing where there could be some agreement with your half-baked naive realism that poses as some kind of philosophical quietism.

A good student needs to have a go at giving an answer himself. So forget what I just said. Tell us in your own words what "height" should mean within the language game of a first Australian form of life - given that we are not talking about idealism but the indirect realism of pragmatism.

You can easily "fix" induction by turning it into a deductive argument such as follows:

1. All observed As are Bs
2. The future mimics the past
3. Therefore, all As in the future will also be Bs

Note that this is still a form of induction. I am saying it is not induction to make Banno and others, such as Janus and that autistic boy who calls himself chester-something, happy. When they use words in a formally precise manner, i.e. when their words align with the manner they are defined by Google, Wikipedia and other established sources, they are happy. Nothing makes them happier than using words in a formally precise manner. So let them have their happiness, let us concede that the above argument is not a form of inductive argument but a form of deductive argument. We lose nothing by doing so, that's for certain. But despite our best efforts, despite our concession, the above argument won't make Banno happy. He will argue, desperately, that the second premise is wrong and that the entire argument falls apart because of it. The premise is wrong, he will claim, because there are moments in our past that were not doing their best to mimic the moments in our past that preceded them. Apparently, not every point in time mimics the set of points in time that preceded it. This, my friends, is supposedly an argument against the second premise. Of course, Banno is full of shit because Banno, like pretty much every single human being on planet Earth, routinely makes decisions by taking this premise for granted. Otherwise, Banno would never be able to eat his breakfast and make love to his girlfriend. He wouldn't be able to so much as compose a forum post. Nothing can function without induction. So an attack on induction is an attack on intelligence itself. What we have here is a form of schizm. Banno says one thing but does another thing. He says induction is wrong but his actions say it's not wrong. So what exactly is wrong? Is it induction? or is it something with Banno?

The future does not have to mimic the past all the time. It is enough that it mimics the past most of the time. Exceptions do not disprove the rule.

To say it is true that the Eiffel Tower has a height, and that the height is 324m, is already admitting that "height" is a theoretical construct. — apokrisis

Sure, the measurement is a construct. We can agree on that.

The issue is that for your Pragmatism there is only the measurement. Hence for you height must be a measurement.

But Uluru will be 863m, whether you measure it or not.

How we measure that, from base or sea level or your nose or whatever - is up to us.

Your criticism is no more than saying that we can't talk (and that includes measuring) without the social constructs of language. Sure. But our social conventions have no influence on the height of Uluru.

In order to name something, there must be something to name.

A good student needs to have a go at giving an answer himself. — apokrisis

I am not your student. I am a mere mosquito. Bzzz bzzz.

I am a mere mosquito. Bzzz bzzz. — Banno

Squish, squish. ;)

But let's not pretend that calling it "abduction" suffices to show its rationality. It's not the case that abduction is universally accepted. I invite you to read the SEP article on abduction and on Peirce's view of abduction. For a start there is the distinction between generating an hypothesis and justifying that hypothesis. If you want to call generating an hypothesis abduction, well and good. But I think that more is needed to justify the hypothesis. Induction and abduction are insufficient to justify a claim. — Banno

I don't have enough time to read that article now. In any case I have been reading Peirce on and off for many years now, and am pretty familiar with his ideas of abduction and induction. Abductive reasoning generates hypotheses, and inductive reasoning (if anything) justifies them.
The idea that things have invariant natures which reliably determine how they can behave, interact with others things, and so on is an example of inductive thinking.

Hypotheses that consist in schemes that give accounts of posited mechanisms that determine the natures of things, and their consequent interactions and relations are examples of abductive reasoning. Such hypotheses cannot be derived from pure deductive thought (although they can be set out in deductive forms where the premises are the parts that are not deductively given, as with all deductive syllogisms), and they cannot be justified by pure deduction either, but can only be justified, if at all, by empirical observation or plausibility. Plausibility itself is not deductive but is based on experience and imagination, which again is induction and abduction.

But Uluru will be 863m, whether you measure it or not. — Banno

Actually, f you measure it in situ you will get about 348 m. I couldn't believe it was 863 m high, so I looked it up. 863 m is its height above sea level.

To return to the argument: that judgement is not deductively validated, though. It is justified by inductive reasoning which tells you that it is plausible to think that what is presented as official geographical knowledge is trustworthy.

You could put this reasoning in deductive form.

What is presented as official geographical facts and figures is always trustworthy
The figures given for the elevation and prominence of Uluru is trustworthy are official geographical figures
Therefore the figures given for the elevation and prominence of Uluru are trustworthy.

This is valid reasoning, but it may not be sound.

The issue is that for your Pragmatism there is only the measurement. — Banno

Why mention the three things of the world, the sign and the interpretant then?

Is this why you don't get triadic ontologies? You struggle with the counting?

But Uluru will be 863m, whether you measure it or not. — Banno

Oh dear. White man speaks patronisingly again. Cartesian co-ordinates exist whether that is a theory by which you make useful sense of your world or not.

How we measure that, from base or sea level or your nose or whatever - is up to us. — Banno

And now throw in some slap-dash relativism to show reality in fact has no preferred co-ordinate frame.

Height may be what you measure as a vertical distance from the ground ... until you throw in the next metaphysical twist of the co-ordinate frame tale. Keeping up wee black fella at the back of the class?

Your criticism is no more than saying that we can't talk (and that includes measuring) without the social constructs of language. Sure. But our social conventions have no influence on the height of Uluru. — Banno

They are what make the notion of "a height" meaningful - a proposition that would be truth-apt within a certain form of life.

You are wanting to talk about some notion of height that is "mind-independent true" - not grounded in a form of life. I am pointing out that all such truth talk is dependent on some communal, language encoded, point of view.

You are welcome to try to justify your leap from the pragmatic view to an epistemology of naive realism. But so far you haven't done that.

Again, address the specific question I put to you.

Tell us in your own words what "height" should mean within the language game of a first Australian form of life.

In order to name something, there must be something to name. — Banno

You mean like the way God has a name? Or unicorns? Or Hesperus and Phosphorus?

I really think something must be broke about the way you reason. Some kind of agnosia going on.

Actually, f you measure it in situ you will get about 348 m. I couldn't believe it was 863 m high, so I looked it up. 863 m is its height above sea level — Janus

LOL. But Banno covered that already.... "How we measure that, from base or sea level or your nose or whatever - is up to us."

So apparently the number of metres in question is both utterly arbitrary - choose any reference point - and also a physical, mind-independent, fact.

Live with the contradiction!

I've been looking forward to your reply.

I could accept abduction as creating hypotheses. But if so, i don't see any advantage in using the term abduction. Why not just talk about creativity? Is it only to place it in the Peircian holy trinity with deduction and induction? Then forget it.

And I continue to fail to see how an invalid induction can be used as a justification. Consider an alternative - coherentism, for example. A belief is justified if it coheres with our other beliefs. Isn't that a superior account of justification than an invalid half-argument such as {f(a), f(b), therefor (x)f(x)}?

For a start there is the distinction between generating an hypothesis and justifying that hypothesis. If you want to call generating an hypothesis abduction, well and good. But I think that more is needed to justify the hypothesis. Induction and abduction are insufficient to justify a claim. — Banno

More weirdness. Banno is told how it works. Inductive thought is about the creative leap from the particular instance to the general rule. Peirce then came along to argue that the scientific method - which had by then proven itself pretty successful - was in fact based on a three-step process of reasoning.

Rather than a dyadic opposition of induction and deduction - which of course wasn't really working out - Peirce made it explicit that "truth" is arrived at via a three step logic.

It starts with abduction - the leap from some particular surprising fact to some guess about a general rule. So this is broadly an inductive step in going from the particular to the general.

Then the next step would - quite logically - be to use the generality to make particular predictions. If the hypothetical rule were true, consequences could be safely deduced. Particular facts could be derived with syntactical certainty. They couldn't be logically wrong - given the truth of the general premiss.

Banno likes the sound of "valid" as the description of a deductive inference of this sort. It somehow suggests that induction is the faulty and shameful part of the deal if you are new to the game of critical thinking. It's a neat rhetorical strategy.

Then third we get the inductive confirmation to close the loop. Deduction gives us a prediction about particular observable facts. The presence of those observables then allow a second completing move from the particular back to the general. The general is shown to be true in the light of the available evidence.

So induction - going from the particular to the general.

Deduction - going from the general to the particular.

Put the two together in the right logical order and you have a holistic relation that can be used in recursive fashion to approach the natural limits on rational inquiry.

So apparently the number of metres in question is both utterly arbitrary - choose any reference point - and also a physical, mind-independent, fact. — apokrisis

Note the inclusion of the straw word "utterly"?

More intelectual dishonesty.

Choose any point you like as the origin, choose any units you like. They can be translated into metric or imperial or cubits or whatever.

What would be living with a contradiction would be to assert that we can measure the height of the rock, and yet also to maintain that the rock has no height. That there is only the measurement.

That's a disgusting post, Apo. Deliberately offensive. I hadn't thought you so desperate.

So tell us in your own words what "height" should mean within the language game of a first Australian form of life.

Choose any point you like as the origin, choose any units you like. They can be translated into metric or imperial or cubits or whatever. — Banno

Sure. If you have a theory of abstract reference frames then you can add the further constraint that it’s distances are ruled off in terms of some arbitrary unit. But so far you haven’t shown how that mental construct relates to someone’s world as a useful fact.

As I say, the aboriginal form of life is said to want to think about spatial distance in terms of duration of effort. The Aussie education system is suppose to recognise that cultural difference in its attempts to teach basic mathematical concepts in a way that don’t continue to favour the later white settlers.

So is a reply not in metres, or any equivalent notion of counting a unit of distance, going to get marked wrong by you? Does everyone have to conform to your Cartesian conception of reality?

Speak clearly now. You have probably used up your last chance.

I could accept abduction as creating hypotheses. But if so, i don't see any advantage in using the term abduction. Why not just talk about creativity? Is it only to place it in the Peircian holy trinity with deduction and induction? Then forget it. — Banno

For me it fits because there seem to be basically three modes of being led in thought.

The etymology for 'deduce' is "lead down, derive" (in Medieval Latin, "infer logically"), from de- "down" (see de-) + ducere "to lead," from PIE root *deuk- "to lead." ; which seems appropriate since a deduction is an abstracted form of thought.

The etymology for 'induce' is "to lead by persuasions or other influences," from Latin inducere "lead into, bring in, introduce, conduct; persuade; suppose, imagine,"

The etymology for 'abduce' is "to draw away" by persuasion or argument, 1530s, from Latin abductus, past participle of abducere "to lead away, take away," also in figurative senses, from ab "off, away from" (see ab-) + ducere "to lead," from PIE root *deuk- "to lead." Related: Abduced; abducing.

The prefixes 'ab' 'in' and 'de' seem to give clues to the character of each mode.

'De' is "Latin adverb and preposition of separation in space, meaning "down from, off, away from," and figuratively "concerning, by reason of, according to;"

'In' is an "element meaning "into, in, on, upon""

'Ab' is a "word-forming element meaning "away, from, from off, down," denoting disjunction, separation, departure; from Latin ab (prep.) "off, away from" in reference to space or distance, also of time"

Etymological source: The Online Etymology Dictionary

And I continue to fail to see how an invalid induction can be used as a justification. Consider an alternative - coherentism, for example. A belief is justified if it coheres with our other beliefs. Isn't that a superior account of justification than an invalid half-argument such as {f(a), f(b), therefor (x)f(x)}?

A belief "cohering with other beliefs' just is validation by abduction and induction as well as deduction, when you think about it. I think the problem is that you are looking at induction as Hume did, as something that somehow must rely on immediate perception or else amount to nothing. It relies rather on cumulative perception. Humans have always posited causes for observed events, different types of causes for different types of events, and at least since the Enlightenment a nature which consists in a unified concatenation of causes (laws and forces). This is what has evolved into science considered as a whole interrelated system of understanding. All of this has been arrived at by inductive (observational), abductive (speculative) and deductive (logical; for the parts contributed by mathematics and geometry) reasonings. It is that scientific (in the broadest possible sense) body of understanding that determines what is considered plausible; i'e' what "coheres with other beliefs", I would say.

LOL. But Banno covered that already.... "How we measure that, from base or sea level or your nose or whatever - is up to us." — apokrisis

Ha ha, looks like I was just being pedantic then, wanting to say that the height of the Rock would normally be thought of as its height from the surrounding desert.

I'm not sure what Banno has in mind; but in general I would agree that some mountains do project up more from the Surface than others, regardless of whether anything has been measured or where you are looking from and so on.

I had a similar argument with Wayfarer once about one pair of things being closer to each other, than another pair. He wanted to claim that it was a matter of perspective, but I think he was thinking about whether they looked closer or not. Even then, I don't follow Nagel in thinking the "view from nowhere" is unattainable. It is if you think it is truly a view from no perspective at all, but when you realize it is actually a view from no particular perspective, which means from every perspective, then it becomes apparent that it is not incoherent and is, at least in principle, attainable, even if not absolutely attainable (whatever that could mean).

That's more or less it.

The extension of the view from somewhere is not the view from nowhere, but the view from anywhere.

We find it by talking to each other.

A belief "cohering with other beliefs' just is validation by abduction and induction as well as deduction, when you think about it. — Janus

I can't find much here to disagree with you on.

There remains a special place for deduction. If one has true premises and a valid argument then the truth of the conclusion must follow. This is not the case with induction and abduction (the word puts me in mind of alien experiments...)

If one grants abduction and induction, then their place can only be in justifying belief, not in finding truth. Unless one follows @apokrisis in rejecting truth altogether.

If one grants abduction and induction, then their place can only be in justifying belief, not in finding truth. — Banno

Yes, I think that's right. Science does not give us truth but speculative understanding. Truth (in the propositional sense, at least) is a rather pedestrian affair to do with official facts and figures, and the obtaining of states of affairs.

It is if you think it is truly a view from no perspective at all, but when you realize it is actually a view from no particular perspective, which means from every perspective, then it becomes apparent that it is not incoherent and is, at least in principle, attainable, even if not absolutely attainable (whatever that could mean). — Janus

Yep. It is an interesting exercise to imagine seeing any object from every perspective possible. So Ayers Rock from the inside, from every distance outside, then over all timescales as well. Any notion of its substantial being would become dissolved in some truly panscopic view that built in no preference.

And then contrast that with the kind of scientific view we aim for where we instead see Ayers Rock in terms of natural laws and initial conditions. More like a wire frame computer simulation.

If one grants abduction and induction, then their place can only be in justifying belief, not in finding truth. Unless one follows apokrisis in rejecting truth altogether. — Banno

Don’t be such a sook. If you agree with Janus, you agree with me. Get over it.

Ok, then - let's go back a few steps. Picture Newton universalising gravity, apples and all.

Was that an act of induction? Can you explain how?

Led by repeated observations of objects invariably falling to Earth and the rising of Sun, moon and planets, to believe that such events will always happen (induction) he imagines that there is a natural law that determines these events, and in a further leap of imagination (abduction) he thinks that these seemingly very different events may be manifestations of a single law or force.

If this thought process is not essentially deductive (even it can, although not exhaustively, be framed in deductive form) then what would you say it could be other than inductive and/ or abductive?

I would say that it is inductive in the sense that experience naturally induces us to think that way, and abductive in that our imaginations abduce (which means they lead us away) from concrete instances to generalities and analogies. It's like the abductive thought I mentioned before that if spacetime is curved then it might be expected, analogously to curved glass and other transparent materials, to refract light. I mean this thought is not deductive in the sense that curvature of spacetime logically entails that light will be refracted. So the observed refraction of light does not prove that spacetime is curved.

Perhaps you could give an account of your thoughts on these specific examples.