@kennethamy,
kennethamy;149233 wrote:It simply does not seem to me that we should hold up deductive arguments as the standard for judging non-deductive arguments, and when you state that inductive arguments are invalid, that is what you are doing. That inductive arguments are not valid seems to me true, but not that they are invalid, since if it makes sense to say of some inductive arguments that they are "invalid", then shouldn't it made sense to say of them that they are "valid" too? After all, given your (correct) definition of "validity" it is true that inductive arguments which cannot meet that definition are not valid. But what makes you think that if they are not valid, then they are invalid? All arguments are, of course, either valid or not valid, but only deductive arguments are either valid or invalid.
I didn't say that we should "hold up deductive arguments as the standard for judging non-deductive arguments". That sounds like some premature criticism of inductive reasoning. There was not much normative in my post above other than one ought to stop claiming that inductive arguments are not valid or invalid. All arguments are valid or invalid.
Invalid = not valid. Is this another case of your reluctance to accept the common usage of negation prefixes? (IN-, UN-, NON-, ANTI-, etc.) like with the previous "unjustified = non justified" confusion?. In any case, whatever it is that you mean by "invalid" over and above not valid. I don't mean that. By "invalid" I mean "not valid" and nothing else.
Or if you really,
really want to stick to your terms. Then fine, let's say that all arguments are either valid or not valid. Now posing these questions in the same form as before gives grammatically odd sentences but surely they are understandable.
Questions:
[INDENT]1. Are there valid inductive arguments?
2. Are there not valid inductive arguments?
3. Are there valid deductive arguments?
4. Are there not valid deductive arguments?
[/INDENT]Depending on how you define "deductive argument" and "inductive argument" you will give different answers.
---------- Post added 04-08-2010 at 03:54 AM ----------
Extrain;149397 wrote:...which was precisely Hume's error. Hume was dense for thinking inductive arguments have to meet the standards of validity set up by deductive arguments.
If the only acceptable form of reasoning is deductive reasoning, then all we have to do is disagree with Hume by reading his argument right back to him.
"No inductive argument is a valid or invalid kind of argument.
Therefore, all inductive arguments are invalid."
This argument, itself, is invalid--and obviously so.
Therefore, Hume was wrong.
Whatever. (Symbols...)