Sunday, July 28, 2013

we should not be able to get minors to fit

We could replace the approximate generalizations by propositions universally true; but these would hardly ever be capable of being applied to practice. We should be sure of our majors, but we should not be able to get minors to fit: we are forced, therefore, to oakley outlet
draw our conclusions from coarser and more fallible indications. Sec. 4. Proceeding now to consider, what is to be regarded as sufficient evidence of an approximate generalization; we can have no difficulty in at once recognising that when admissible at all, it is admissible only as an empirical law. Propositions of the form, Every A is B, are not necessarily laws of causation, or ultimate uniformities of coexistence; propositions like Most A are B cheap oakleys
cannot be so. Propositions hitherto found true in every observed instance, may yet be no necessary consequence of laws of causation, or of ultimate uniformities, and unless they are so, may, for aught we know, be false beyond the limits of actual observation: still more evidently must this be the case with propositions which are only true in a mere majority of the observed instances. There is some difference, however, in the degree of certainty of the proposition, Most A are B, according as that approximate generalization composes the whole of our knowledge of the subject, cheap oakley sunglasses
or not. Suppose, first, that the former is the case. We know only that most A are B, not why they are so, nor in what respect those which are, differ from those which are not. How then did we learn that most A are B?

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