Inferences Sentence Examples

Child dismisses his inferences as "ludicrous."

What is scientific method as a system of inferences about definite subjects?

He draws no inferences to theology or religion, whether friendly or hostile, from his new positions.

The question of logic is how we infer in fact, as well as perfectly; and we cannot understand inference unless we consider inferences of probability of all kinds.

Such is the evidence on which so many inferences are based.

Haruspication, or the inspection of entrails, was justified on similar grounds, and in the case of omens from birds or animals, no less than in astrology, it was held that the facts from which inferences were drawn were themselves in part the causes of the events which they foretold, thus fortifying the belief in the possibility of divination.

Sociology and the science of culture are concerned with the origin and development of arts and sciences, opinions, beliefs, customs, laws and institutions generally among mankind within historic time; while beyond the historical limit the study is continued by inferences from relics of early ages and remote districts, to interpret which is the task of pre-historic archaeology and geology.

The selections you choose can help practice logical thinking as readers draw conclusions and make inferences as they read.

But fuller conceptions of evolution raise further difficulties for intuitionalism in its wonted forms. Knowledge cannot be divided into the two components - immediate certainties, precarious inferences.

He was quite aware of the taxonomic value of the vocal organs of some groups of birds, presently to be especially mentioned, and he had himself ascertained the presence and absence of caeca in a not inconsiderable number of groups, drawing thence very justifiable inferences.

It is, however, exceedingly difficult in this respect to draw an absolute distinction between men and animals, observation of which undoubtedly suggests that the latter have a certain power of making inferences.

As regards the use of testimonia, it may be observed to begin with that their value must depend on the trustworthiness of the texts of the writers from whom they are taken, and further upon that of the text used by the translator, the excerptor or the quoter, about which we can know nothing for certain, though we may sometimes make probable inferences.

The excavations have provided examples of houses of every description, from the humble dwelling-place of the artisan or proletarian, with only three or four small rooms, to the stately mansions of Sallust, of the Faun, of the Golden Cupids, of the Silver Wedding, of the Vettii, of Pansa, 1 &c. - the last of which is among the most regular in plan, and may be taken as an almost 1 It may be observed that the names given in most cases to the houses are either arbitrary or founded in the first instance upon erroneous inferences.

The great merit of conceptual logic was the demand for a mental analysis of mental reasoning, and the direct analysis of reasoning into judgments which are the sole premises and conclusions of reasoning and of all mental inferences.

To give the name of syllogism to inferences which infringe the general rules against undistributed middle, illicit process, two negative premises, non-sequitur from negative to affirmative, and the introduction of what is not in the premises into the conclusion, and which consequently infringe the special rules against affirmative conclusions in the second figure, and against universal conclusions in the third figure, is to open the door to fallacy, and at best to confuse the syllogism with other kinds of inference, without enabling us to understand any one kind.

In the same way, to infer a machine from hearing the regular tick of a clock, to infer a player from finding a pack of cards arranged in suits, to infer a human origin of stone implements, and all such inferences from patent effects to latent causes, though they appear to Jevons to be typical inductions, are really deductions which, besides the minor premise stating the particular effects, require a major premise discovered by a previous induction and stating the general kind of effects of a general kind of cause.

Secondly, a subordinate point in Bradley's logic is that there are inferences which are not syllogisms; and this is true.

Moreover, as we have shown, our primary judgments of sense are beliefs founded on sensations without requiring ideas, and are beliefs, not merely that something is determined, but that it is determined as existing; and, accordingly, our primary inferences from these sensory judgments of existence are inferences that other things beyond sense are similarly determined as existing.

The aim of logic in general is to find the laws of all inference, which, so far as it obeys those laws, is always consistent, but is true or false according to its data as well as its consistency; and the aim of the special logic of knowledge is to find the laws of direct and indirect inferences from sense, because as sense produces sensory judgments which are always true of the sensible things actually perceived, inference from sense produces inferential judgments which, so far as they are consequent on sensory judgments, are always true of things similar to sensible things, by the very consistency of inference, or, as we say, by parity of reasoning.

It is true, of course, that ultimate laws need discovery, that they are discovered in some sense in the medium of the psychological mechanism, and that they are nevertheless the grounds of all specific inferences.

But inferences of this class have hardly attained to sufficient certainty and generality to be set down in the form of rules.

Again, certain inferences have been tentatively made from the depth of mud, earth, peat, &c., which has accumulated above relics of human art imbedded in ancient times.

Lastly, chronicles and documentary records, taken in connexion with archaeological relics of the historical period, carry back into distant ages the starting-point of actual history, behind which lies the evidently vast period only known by inferences from the relations of languages and the stages of development of civilization.

Though few follow him so far, an explanation of the principle will make it clear that there are numerous possible opportunities for anomalous dispersion to qualify inferences from the spectrum.

Jacobi's next important work, David Hume fiber den Glauben, oder Idealismus and Realismus (1787), was an attempt to show not only that the term Glaube had been used by the most eminent writers to denote what he had employed it for in the Letters on Spinoza, but that the nature of the cognition of facts as opposed to the construction of inferences could not be otherwise expressed.

Thus inferences from embryonic development need to be checked by palaeontology, and supplemented by comparison of the anatomy of other living genera.

In spite, however, of possible inferences from his definition of virtue, this does not seem to be really More's view.

He thus undoubtedly simplifies his system, and avoids the doubtful inferences from nature and Scripture in which Paley's position is involved; but this gain is dearly purchased.

In the first sense, again, as distinct from the second, the assertion of " freedom " has no ethical significance, except in so far as it introduces a general uncertainty into all our inferences respecting human conduct.

It would be quite possible to accept his criticisms of naturalism and hedonism while rejecting many of the metaphysical inferences which he draws.

Even later, when the telescope was the only instrument of research, knowledge on this subject was confined to the appearances presented by the planets, supplemented by more or less probable inferences as to the nature of their surfaces.

Even in the time of Copernicus some well-meaning persons, especially those of the reformed persuasion, had suspected a discrepancy between the new view of the solar system and certain passages of Scripture - a suspicion strengthened by the antiChristian inferences drawn from it by Giordano Bruno; but the question was never formally debated until Galileo's brilliant disclosures, enhanced by his formidable dialectic and enthusiastic zeal, irresistibly challenged for it the attention of the authorities.

With the sure instinct of genius, he seized the characteristic features of the phenomena presented to his attention, and his inferences, except when distorted by polemical exigencies, have been strikingly confirmed by modern investigations.

But it has not justified the application of this conclusion to all the instances in which some critics have relied upon it, or the sweeping inferences and reconstructions which have sometimes been based upon it.

The few and incomplete data which we at present possess as to Palaeozoic Fungi do not as yet justify any inferences as to the evolution of these plants.

There were inferences of discrimination from the arrangements adopted by the employers.

There were pragmatic inferences.

No skill in drawing inferences will avail him there.

By manipulating the pointers, subjects can derive inferences that are not explicit in the text.

However, the Inquiry is concerned that current categorisations used in the SSCSS survey do not permit clear inferences to be drawn.

Hence, the attempt to rescue inductive inferences by grafting deductive inferences onto them disguises rather than solves the problem of induction.

In the omission theory, the question about what inferences are made " during reading " is beside the point. /para para para 6.4.

It may be generally concluded that the substitution of alkyl, nitro, hydroxyl, and haloid groups for hydrogen in a molecule occasions a deformation of crystal structure in one definite direction, hence permitting inferences as to the configuration of the atoms composing the crystal; while the nature and degree of the alteration depends (1) upon the crystal structure of the unsubstituted compound; (2) on the nature of the substituting radicle; (3) on the complexity of the substituted molecule; and (4) on the orientation of the substitution derivative.

If the church, and not the state, was regarded as Babylon, and the pope declared to be the Antichrist, these were legitimate inferences from the ancient traditions and the actual position of the church.

Study of his original papers shows that his discoveries were not made at haphazard, but were the outcome of experiments carefully planned to verify inferences already drawn, and successfully designed to settle the point at issue in the simplest and most direct manner.

Further, the effects that he estimates are all of a definite, palpable, empirically ascertainable quality; they are such pleasures and pains as most men feel and all can observe, so that all his political or moral inferences lie open at every point to the test of practical experience.

The subject matter of the text is, obviously, a crucial determinant of the role that spatial inferences play in understanding it.

Thus we speak of man as essentially a rational animal, it being implied that man differs from all other animals in that he can consciously draw inferences from premises.

It will be best to give first the leading facts, and then the inferences which may be drawn from them.

All other judgments and inferences about existing things, or ideas, or names, whether categorical or hypothetical, are afterthoughts, partly true and partly false.

If we accept the hypothesis that each kind of atom has a specific and invariable weight, we can, with the aid of the above theory, make most important inferences concerning the proportions by weight in which substances combine to form compounds.

These inferences are often summarized as the laws of constant, multiple and reciprocal proportions.

If Lang is right, " primitive " peoples drew typical theistic inferences, and argued to God from nature and from conscience, though without displacing other types of religious belief and practice.

Meteorologists can also go back into the record books and look at past weather patterns and make inferences about what to expect for the coming winter.

But, on the hypothesis that knowledge contains no inferences beyond experience, it follows that all the objects of knowledge, being objects of experience, are, or have been, or can be, present to an experiencing subject.

Realizing that the total weight of all the products of a chemical reaction must be exactly equal to the total weight of the reacting substances, he made the balance the ultima ratio of the laboratory, and he was able to draw correct inferences from his weighings because, unlike many of the phlogistonists, he looked upon heat as imponderable.

To eliminate this " if " ultimately requires other inferences before deduction.

But he thought that inferences other than syllogism are imperfect; that analogical inference is rhetorical induction; and that induction, through the necessary preliminary of syllogism and the sole process of ascent from sense, memory and experience to the principles of science, is itself neither reasoning nor science.

Lastly, the science of inference is not indeed the science of sensation, memory and experience, but at the same time it is the science of using those mental operations as data of inference; and, if logic does not show how analogical and inductive inferences directly, and deductive inferences indirectly, arise from experience, it becomes a science of mere thinking without knowledge.

This makes them omit sensory judgments, and count only those which require ideas, and even general ideas expressed in general terms. Sigwart, for example, gives as instances of our most elementary judgments, " This is Socrates," " This is snow "- beliefs in things existing beyond ourselves which require considerable inferences from many previous judgments of sense and memory.

Being a Pharisee, he sometimes introduces traditions of the Elders, which are either inferences from, or embroideries of, the biblical narrative.

It is only within recent years that an attempt has been made to judge Nestorius from some other evidence than that afforded by the accusations of Cyril and the inferences drawn therefrom.

The doctrines of Christianity, and in many communities the customs of the Church, were held to be inferences from the inspired text of the Scriptures.

He carries its operation beforereason still farther, supposing that " attuition " makes particular inferences about outside objects, and that a man, or a dog, through association " attuites " sequence and invariableness of succession, and, in fact, gets as far in the direction of causation as Hume thought it possible to go at all.

Having thus begun by touch and tactile inference, we confirm and extend our inferences of bodies in Nature by using the rest of the senses.

But the primary sense of touch perceives one bodily member causing pressure on another, reciprocally, within the organism, from which we infer similar particular pressures caused between the organism and the external world; but without needing the supposed stupendous belief and assumption of the uniformity of Nature, which is altogether ignored in the inferences of the ordinary man.

The personality of Lazarus in John's account, his relation to Martha and Mary, and the possibility that John reconstructed the story by the aid of inferences from the story of the supper in Luke x.

Over and over again extended knowledge on this point and inferences drawn from other facts have shown the certainty or probability of examples of mimicry being in reality " Mullerian," which were previously accepted without question as " Batesian."

In dealing with the individual eschatology we must carefully distinguish the popular ideas regarding death and the hereafter which Israel shared with the other Semitic peoples, from the intuitions, inferences, aspirations evoked in the pious by the divine revelation itself.

The composition of the special service corps was much criticized at the time; but as it was not called upon for fighting purposes, no inferences as to its efficiency are possible.

It appears to involve, therefore, some real relation among the portions of experience, on the basis of which relation judgments and inferences as to matters of fact can be shown to rest.

The theoretical question is consequently that of the nature of the supposed relation, and of the certainty of judgments and inferences resting on it.

Not that he omitted other inferences (irio-mcs).

Sense, then, is the origin of judgment; and the consequence is that primary judgments are true, categorical and existential judgments of sense, and primary inferences are inferences from categorical and existential premises to categorical and existential conclusions, which are true so far as they arise from outer and inner sense, and proceed to things similar to sensible things.

It is, however, the main business of logic to direct us how out of judgments to form inferences signified by discourse; and this is the one point which conceptual logic has contributed to the science of inference.

But there is an intermediate alternative, which is neither impossible nor arbitrary; namely, to consider the general distinctions and principles of all things; and without this general consideration of the matter the logician cannot know the form of thought, which consists in drawing inferences about things on these general principles.

These three sciences, of the objects of mind, of the operations of mind, of the processes used in the inferences of mind, are differently, but closely related, so that they are constantly confused.

We do not mean that in Wundt's supposed " inferences of relation by comparison and connexion" the premises are of no further use; but those of the first kind are of no syllogistic use in the second figure, and those of the second kind of no syllogistic use beyond particular conclusions in the third figure.

In formal logic the drawing of inferences is frequently called ratiocination.

One Posts in of their inferences was that, in the early days, corn- Early munication was by water only, and that not until Times.

But such inferences as these are but a vague return for the labour expended, and an almost cruelly inadequate response to seemingly well-founded expectations.

The characteristics of Lelewel as an historian are great research and power to draw inferences from his facts; his style is too often careless, and his narrative is not picturesque, but his expressions are frequently terse and incisive.

The charge of dishonesty is one never to be lightly made against men of such distinction as his, especially when their evident confidence in their own infallibility, their faculty of ingenious casuistry, and the strength of will which makes them (unconsciously, no doubt) close and keep closed the eyes of their mind to all inconvenient facts and inferences, supply a more charitable explanation.

But, unfortunately, he did not mean the logical inferences described in the Organon and the Novum organum.

According to him, whatever inferences we make, certain or uncertain, are mere economies of thought, adapting ideas to sensations, and filling out the gaps of experience by ideas; whatever we infer, whether bodies, or molecules, or atoms, or space of more than three dimensions, are all without distinction equally provisional conceptions, things of thought; and " bodies or things are compendious mental symbols for groups of sensations - symbols which do not exist outside thought."

Henceforth the history of Palestine is disconnected and fragmentary, and the few known events of political importance are isolated and can be supplemented only by inferences from the movements of Egypt, Philistia or Phoenicia, or from the Old Testament.

All the inferences from earlier work required revision, but specialists of different expeditions had already committed themselves to views which could not be reconciled in the absence of full information from all explorers.

Bracton fits his definition of villenage into the Romanesque scheme of Azo's Summa of the Institutes, and the judges of the royal courts made sweeping inferences from this general position.

On the whole, then, analogical, inductive and deductive inferences are not the same but three similar and closely connected processes.

For this reason it has been elevated by some logicians above all other inferences, and for this very same reason attacked by others as no inference at all.

Logic is related to all the sciences, because it considers the common inferences and varying methods used in investigating different subjects.

What they really are in the inferences proposed by Wundt is not premises for syllogism, but data for induction parading as syllogism.

The reading of the names is, however, extremely uncertain, not to say improbable, and the far-reaching inferences drawn from them carry no conviction.

Moreover, the looseness of his statements and the rashness of his inferences regarding statistical averages make him, as a great authority has remarked, the enfant terrible of moral statisticians.

In fact, analogical, inductive and deductive inferences, though different processes of combining premises to cause different conclusions, are so similar and related, so united in principle and interdependent, so consolidated into a system of inference, that they cannot be completely investigated apart, but together constitute a single subject of science.

None the less the known facts justify a large number of inferences as to the significance of events which are on the surface merely a part of the individual foreign policy of Athens.