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Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy pp 1–6Cite as

Induction

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Abstract

How induction was understood took a substantial turn during the Renaissance. At the beginning, induction was understood as it had been throughout the medieval period, as a kind of propositional inference that is stronger the more it approximates deduction. During the Renaissance, an older understanding, one prevalent in antiquity, was rediscovered and adopted. By this understanding, induction identifies defining characteristics using a process of comparing and contrasting.

Important participants in the change were Jean Buridan, humanists such as Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola, Paduan Aristotelians such as Agostino Nifo, Jacopo Zabarella, and members of the medical faculty, writers on philosophy of mind such as the Englishman John Case, writers of reasoning handbooks, and Francis Bacon.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    John P. McCaskey

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  1. John P. McCaskey
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Correspondence to John P. McCaskey .

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  1. University of Verona, Mantova, Italy

    Marco Sgarbi

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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McCaskey, J.P. (2016). Induction. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1054-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1054-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Induction, Philosophical Conceptions of
    Published:
    07 April 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1054-2

  2. Original

    Induction
    Published:
    28 July 2016

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1054-1

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