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Inductive arguments do not lead to certainty, but they often do lead to truth. It is by an inductive argument that I claim there is a table in the room, on the basis that I am looking at what appears to be a table. This claim is 100% true. I'm not 100% certain - hallucinations or dreams are always possible - but I'm confident enough that it's true to just make the claim that there is a table.
– causative
Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 16:12
You said, "inductive reasoning is only able to create strong or weak arguments, but none that are true or false." But you're conflating the argument with the conclusion. Conclusions may be true or false, arguments may be valid or invalid (and, if invalid, they may be strong or weak). Perhaps you meant to say, "inductive arguments are not deductively valid." "Deductively valid" is not the same as "true." A weak argument may still have a true conclusion.
– causative
Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 16:15
@causative Sorry but do you conflate inductive with empirical? The latter is about sensual perception such as seeing what's inside your room. And where do you draw the line between certainty and truth? Like no that there is a table in your room is not absolutely 100% true so that you'd be able to deduce things from that. And your confidence is irrelevant to the truth value of that claim
– haxor789
Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 18:03
@causative deductive arguments can be valid or invalid, but that would be about inductive reasoning, there any argument is by definition invalid because they don't follow the deductive form and you would distinguish them instead as weak or strong en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_reasoning
– haxor789
Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 18:06
(1) "Certainty" and "truth" are not comparable. Something can be simultaneously uncertain, and true. Certainty is about the credence held in the mind of the person. Truth is about what is actually the case, outside of the mind of the person. (2) "Empirical" and "inductive" are interchangeable. The idea that there is a table in the room is a hypothesis like any other scientific hypothesis, which is validated or falsified by sense data. At no point can we directly perceive "there is a table"; we directly perceive only points of color. The idea of the table is an inductive hypothesis.
– causative
Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 18:16

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