Induction — Simple Enumeration as a form of induction

Every crow you have ever seen has been black, so you conclude all crows are black — until someone from Australia shows you a photograph of a white cockatoo standing next to a black crow and says, actually, look closer. That leap from ‘every case observed so far’ to ‘all cases, everywhere’ is the oldest and crudest form of induction there is, and this topic is about exactly how far you can trust it.

In two minutes

Simple enumeration is the form of induction that generalises from a number of individual instances, in which no exception has been observed, to a universal conclusion covering all instances of that kind — without examining why the connection holds, which is exactly what makes it the weakest form of inductive reasoning.

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