Deductive Reasoning
Table of Contents [show]
I. Definition
Deductive reasoning, or deduction, is one of the two basic types of logical inference. A
logical inference is a connection from a first statement (a “premise”) to a second statement
(“the conclusion”) for which the rules of logic show that if the first statement is true, the
second statement should be true.
Specifically, deductions are inferences which must be true—at least according to the rules. If
you assume that the premise (first statement) is true, then you can deduce other things
that have to be true. These are called deductive conclusions.
Examples:
Premise: Socrates is a man, and all men are mortal.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
Premise: This dog always barks when someone is at the door, and the dog didn’t bark.
Conclusion: There’s no one at the door.
Premise: Sam goes wherever Ben goes, and Ben went to the library.
Conclusion: Sam also went to the library.
Each of these miniature arguments has two premises (joined by the “and”). These
are syllogisms, which provide a model for all deductive reasoning. It is also possible to deduce
something from just one statement; but it isn’t very interesting; for example, from the premise
“Socrates is a man,” you can certainly deduce that at least one man exists. But most
deductions require more than one premise.
You’ll also notice that each premise contains a very general claim–something about “all men”
or what the dog “always” does. This is an extremely common feature of deductions: their
premises are general and their conclusions are specific.
In each case, the deductive reasoning is valid, meaning that the conclusion has to be true–if
the premises are true. The logical relation between premise and conclusion is airtight.
However, you always have to be careful with deductive reasoning. Even though the premise
and conclusion are connected by an airtight deduction, that doesn’t necessarily mean the
conclusion is true. The premises could be faulty, making the conclusions invalid.
Premises are often unreliable. For example, in the real world no dog is 100% reliable, so you
can’t be certain that the premise “the dog always barks” is true. Therefore, even though
the connection is a logical certainty, the actual truth of each statement has to be verified
through the messy, uncertain process of observations and experiments.
There’s another problem with deductive reasoning, which is that deductive conclusions
technically don’t add any new information. For example, once you say “All men are mortal,
and Socrates is a man,” you’ve already said that Socrates is mortal. That’s why deductions
have the power of logical certainty: the conclusion is already contained within the premises.
That doesn’t mean deductive reasoning isn’t useful; it is useful for uncovering implications of
what you already know—but not so much for developing really new truths.
II. Deductive Reasoning vs. Inductive Reasoning
While deductive reasoning implies logical certainty, inductive reasoning only gives you
reasonable probability. In addition, they often move in opposite directions: where deductive
reasoning tends to go from general premises to specific conclusions, inductive reasoning often
goes the other way—from specific examples to general conclusions.
Examples of inductive reasoning:
Premise: No one has ever lived past the age of 122.
Conclusion: Human beings probably all die sooner or later.
Premise: So far, I’ve never seen someone come to the door without my dog barking.
Conclusion: My dog will probably bark when the next person comes to the door.
Premise: Sam has been following Ben around all day.
Conclusion: Sam will probably go to the library this afternoon when Ben goes.
Induction allows us to take a series of observations (specific premises) and extrapolate from
them to new knowledge about what usually happens (general conclusion) or what will
probably happen in the future. This seems extremely useful!
III. Quotations about Deductive reasoning
Quote 1
“In the hypothetico-deductive scheme the inferences we draw from a hypothesis are, in
a sense, its logical output. If they are true, the hypothesis need not be altered, but
correction is obligatory if they are false.” (Peter Medawar)
Peter Medawar wasn’t the clearest writer around, but he won a Nobel Prize for his part in
inventing modern organ transplantation. In this quotation, he explains the importance of
deductive reasoning in science; science normally advances through incorrect deductions! If we
reason logically and our predictions turn out untrue, we know that there is something wrong
with our premises, which motivates new theories from which we can deduce new conclusions
to test. For example, if the Earth were flat (premise) then you’d be able to reach its edge
(conclusion); since we never reach the edge (the conclusion is wrong), it can’t be flat (the
premise is untrue) — which means it’s probably a sphere (new theory). In other words, unlike
the popular idea that science is a kind of faith, there are no beliefs in real science—except the
belief in the scientific method of making and testing hypotheses with reason and evidence.
Quote 2
“An ideally rational progression of thought will finally bring you back to the point of
departure where you return aware of the simplicity of genius, with a delightful
sensation that you have embraced truth, while actually you have merely embraced your
own self.” (Vladimir Nabokov)
In this quote, the novelist Vladimir Nabokov explains his skeptical attitude toward deductive
reasoning. He points out what we already discussed–that deductions get their certainty from
the fact that they don’t add any new information. Nabokov extends this idea to rationality in
general, but in this quotation he seems to be talking specifically about deductive reasoning.
IV. The History and Importance of Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning is more formalized than induction, but its history goes way back before
the origins of formal philosophy. It’s possible that the earliest form of deductive reasoning
was math. All of mathematics is one big pile of deductions. It starts with some very general
rules defining the sequence of whole numbers, and then deduces all sorts of conclusions from
there. Math by itself may not teach us about the world; its conclusions are already buried in its
premises, and therefore it doesn’t technically produce new information. However,
mathematical deductions have progressed so far from their premises that recently it has
become a source of new physical theories, such as with ‘string theory’—a trend that bothers
many physicists. But in combination with observation and experimentation, math and
deduction have always been powerful tool for understanding and manipulating the world.
People all over the world have known about this power since prehistoric times.
Ever since then, mathematicians and philosophers have been working out the formal rules for
what counts as a valid deduction. Their work allows us to distinguish good deductive
reasoning from sloppy or misleading arguments, and forms the backbone of formal logic.
V. Deductive reasoning in Popular Culture
Example 1
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist
facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” (Sherlock Holmes)
Sherlock Holmes famously uses the word “deduction” a lot. But if you pay attention to his
logic, you’ll find that it’s almost always inductive rather than deductive; the word “deduction”
is being misused. This quote is a well-known summary of Holmes’s method, and as you can
see it describes inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning. Theories are general,
whereas data is specific; therefore, if you start from data and move to theory, you’re moving
from specific to general, which suggests that you’re dealing with induction rather than
deduction. The definitive proof, though, is in the fact that Sherlock always comes up with
stories that are probable, and often very convincing, but not logically certain. Sherlock
Holmes never gives us a deductive syllogism; he gives only inductive stories.
Example 2
“It’s not complicated; faster is better. And iPhone 5 downloads fastest on AT&T 4G.”
This is an example of a deductive syllogism in an advertisement. Or, actually, only the two
premises are given and the listener is expected to automatically deduce the conclusion. The
first premise is a general law: faster is better. The second premise applies the law to a
particular situation. And the implied conclusion is obvious: the iPhone is better. This
conclusion is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be stated — another demonstration of the fact
that deductive conclusions are already contained in the premises, as discussed earlier.
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Date retrieved: February 10, 2018
