Probable Deduction

# Probable Deduction

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
Probable Deduction
1902 | Probable Inference | CP 2:783-785

that relation of the premissed facts to the concluded fact which is regarded as making the former a sign of the latter [—] may be altogether irrespective of whether the conclusion is recognized or not, yet such that it could not subsist if the concluded fact were not probable; this is probable deduction.

[—]

[Probable deduction] is, by the definition of it, necessary inference. But necessary inference may be applied to probability as its subject-matter; and it then becomes, under another aspect, probable inference. If of an endless series of possible experiences a definite proportion will present a certain character (which is the sort of fact called an objective probability), then it necessarily follows that, foreseen or not, approximately the same proportion of any finite portion of that series will present the same character, either as it is, or when it has been sufficiently extended. This is governed by precisely the same principle as the inductive inference, but applied in the reverse way. The same prescriptions of logic apply as before; but, owing to that being now inferred which was in the other case a premiss, and conversely, it is not here true that the relation of the facts laid down in the premisses to the fact stated in the conclusion, which makes the former significant of the latter, requires the recognition of the conclusion. This is probable deduction. It covers all the ordinary and legitimate applications of the mathematical doctrine of probability.

1903 | Syllabus: Nomenclature and Division of Triadic Relations, as far as they are determined | EP 2:298; CP 2.268

Probable Deductions, or more accurately, Deductions of Probability, are Deductions whose Interpretants represent them to be concerned with ratios of frequency. They are either Statistical Deductions or Probable Deductions Proper. A Statistical Deduction is a Deduction whose Interpretant represents it to reason concerning ratios of frequency, but to reason concerning them with absolute certainty. A Probable Deduction proper is a Deduction whose Interpretant does not represent that its conclusion is certain, but that precisely analogous reasonings would from true premisses produce true conclusions in the majority of cases, in the long run of experience.

1911 | A Logical Criticism of the Articles of Religious Belief | MS [R] 856:5

Probable Deduction is a Deduction which concludes that a definite state of things has a given Probability because this is substantially asserted in the Copulate Premiss.