CONTINUING WITH THE SOCRATIC METHOD

Hey Rational Animals, What's up? So, we are to finish what we have started in the last blog, The Socratic method. 

The two more processes that are parts of the Socratic method are:-

1. The inductive method 

2. The Abductive method

The inductive method:-

Deduction works only if we have a complete set of premises about the matter we want to draw a conclusion of. But in real world which is ignorant, We can only work in terms of probabilities about truth of certain things because we never have the complete set of true premises . The simple reason for that is that the world's so big and probably limitless, so the truth about a certain thing can't be generalized. 

Let's take an example of cats. If someone tells you that he has counted the no. of cats in the Universe and it is 1 billion. Would you believe it to be true? No! You should not, because The Universe which observable may have this many number of cats but every second, lights from more distant galaxies are reaching us so our domain of counting is increasing with time. So, we can't be 100% sure that the figure he told us is true However reliable the guy is. 

So, basically, we never know everything about a certain topic so we can't apply deductive reasoning to everything and the world works on probability of a fact being true or false. 

Like :- You can't deduce by any logic that there is no God, you can just say it is improbable to have a God. 



So, let's see how induction works. Similar to Deduction, we set premises here. These premises are best to our knowledge true. And then we induce a generalisation based on the premises which is highly likely. 

Let's take an example, 

• Premise 1:- Vibhat ate some Momos yesterday. 

• Premise 2:- His Friend Abhishek ate some Momos yesterday. 

• Premise 3:- Both of them today have stomach ache. 

• Conclusion:- Momos probably is the reason for both of them getting stomach ache. 

Let's see, umm! But there may be other possible reasons, different reasons for both of them may be. May be Vibhat is Glutton kind of a guy who stuffed a lot of boiled eggs along with Momos that day. May be Abhishek got ache because of his haphazard eating habits which is out of schedule. 

Notice, however that the conclusion is an inductive conclusion where "probably" is used. It is claimed here that there is a higher possibility that the Momos are the real culprit. 

That's how Induction works. 

 In any Scientific research in theory,  Induction is used more often than Deduction. Science never claims to know the reason behind something with all certainty. It only claims that the most highly likely reason behind a phenomena consistent with the experiment is the scientific reason given and is justified. Science never claims to have a conformist approach to things. The people who compare Science with religious dogma are either less educated or unaware of the ways of reasoning. 

Moving on, 

But wait, Induction is the same process by which religion proposes certain things. Yeah true! But the matter of possibility lies there. Religion even claims to predict future. 

Induction may give a false hope in that case too. 

Let's imagine something. Let us assume that there is a substance named Croto.It is usually observed that the colour of Croto is blue after 10 years of it's existence. 

Before that, The colour of Croto is pink. Now if I found a Croto and it is pink. It means it is not older than 10 years. But this is again just a possibility because it is an observation about a few Crotos but not about all Crotos. We generalized the fact of it's colour using this observation. 

The same induction works for why you like certain things and why you don't like certain things. Why do you like to watch the next Marvel film? Because you have seen most of the previous ones and you have figured out that Marvel films are always lit. So, you conclude, that this film will also be amazing. It may not be so, but it is highly likely that it will be. 

The Abductive method :- 

Socrates, in his method, proposed something called a "dialogue", which is basically what it is, exchange of ideas by the above methods of reasoning. This dialogue happens between people which were called "Interlocutors". 

Interlocutors present there premises and conclusions and then debate. But the thing remains, just to propose one's own assertions and conclusions will not lead to truth. One must critically analyze the other person's arguments and try to disprove it. This method of eliminating all possible conclusions regarding a certain Debate is called The Abductive method. 

In a nutshell, eliminating all other possibilities by proving them impossible, One is left with the only possible conclusion which must be right. 

For example, 

Me :-

• premise 1 :-  Most of the Intelligent people have long hairs. 

• premise 2:-  I have long hairs. 

• conclusion :- I am intelligent. 

My friend Abhishek :-

• premise 1 :-  I had  a girlfriend who had long hairs. 

• premise 2:- She was stupid. 

• Conclusion:- Not all long hairs have big brains. 

• Abductive conclusion :- may be you are dumb too. 

Me :-

• premise 1:- But I have read philosophy along with that I am studying physics, learning a language and poetic skills about it. 

• premise 2:-  May be long hairs have nothing to do with intelligence. But, long hairs may reflect that one is so busy with one's studies that one doesn't get time to cut them. 

• Inductive conclusion :- I am an intelligent guy, may be not because of long hairs, but it is related to my intelligence indirectly. 

My Friend Abhishek then sends me this meme. 

Well! This leads us to end of philosophical reasoning. Now we are ready to have a look on various "-isms" And the reasoning behind them. Note that all "-isms" Use all the three reasoning methods, one more than the other in different proportions. 

But The basis of philosophy ends here, now comes the parts which You will love to hear and as Aristotle says, 

"You can entertain an argument, without agreeing to it". So! Be ready for this journey.