Joshua Lo Dissertation Defense

Joshua Lo will defend his dissertation, "Induction in Aristotle." Open to all members of the philosophy department. Induction in Aristotle Joshua Lo Abstract: The importance of induction in Aristotle can hardly be underemphasized. It plays a critical role in his logic and epistemology; it is employed throughout his more general and particular philosophical treaties; in fact, Aristotle claims at one point that “everything we believe is either through syllogism or from induction” (Prior Analytics II.23 68b13-14). Getting clear what “induction” means for Aristotle, then, is a worthwhile pursuit. But as Aristotle might say, induction is “said in many ways”; and although Aristotle himself never attempts to distinguish and order the various uses of the term, many attempts have been made. The goal of this dissertation is not only to identify these various senses of induction, but also to give a genealogical account of these various senses: how from certain basic etymological uses, the term became codified as a form argument used in dialectical conversations; and how from this use, it was carried over and developed into more general philosophical, logical, epistemological uses. In this dissertation, I identify two etymological uses of “induction”, and then give six more technical uses of the term: (1) the dialectical induction, (2) sense induction, (3) type induction, (4) blunt-fact induction, (5) analogous induction, and (6) the abstraction of universal concepts in a context dependent manner. I argue that uses (2)-(6) develop from use (1). It is the thesis of this dissertation that this genealogical account of induction not only puts us in a good position to understand what in general Aristotle means by “induction”, but also it helps us to interpret challenging texts like Prior Analytics II.23 and Posterior Analytics II.19. The account also shows how Aristotle can be considered an empiricist.