The sources of Mill's views of ratiocination and induction

Steffen Ducheyne and John P. McCaskey (2014). “The Sources of Mill’s Views of Ratiocination and Induction,” in: Antis Loizides (ed.), John Stuart Mill’s ‘A System of Logic’: A Critical Guide (London, Routledge), pp. 63-8

Regula Socratis: The Rediscovery of Ancient Induction in Early Modern England

A revisionist account of how philosophical induction was conceived in the ancient world and how that conception was transmitted, altered, and then rediscovered. I show how philosophers of late antiquity and then the medieval period came step-by-step to seriously misunderstand Aristotle’s view of induction and how that mistake was reversed by humanists in the Renaissance and then especially by Francis Bacon. I show, naturally enough then, that in early modern science, Baconians were Aristotelians and Aristotelians were Baconians

The Sources of Mill’s View of Ratiocination and Induction

The philosophical background important to Mill’s theory of induction has two major components: Richard Whately’s introduction of the uniformity principle into inductive inference and the loss of the idea of formal cause

Steven Matthews, _Theology and Science in Francis Bacon’s Thought_

This work intentionally joins Stephen A. McKnight’s The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought in arguing that Sir Francis Bacon was more deeply religious than he is conventionally thought to have been. Though the book is full of interesting suggestions, a lack of breadth, rigor, and precision will leave many readers unconvinced. . . . Those who know the corpus and secondary literature enough to read critically will find here provocative suggestions and intriguing leads. Others will need to be cautious about the book’s arguments and conclusions

Reviving material theories of induction

John Norton says that philosophers have been led astray for thousands of years by their attempt to treat induction formally. He is correct that such an attempt has caused no end of trouble, but he is wrong about the history. There is a rich tradition of non-formal induction. In fact, material theories of induction prevailed all through antiquity and from the Renaissance to the mid-1800s. Recovering these past systems would not only fill lacunae in Norton’s own theory but would highlight areas where Norton has not freed himself from the straightjacket of formal induction as much as he might think. This essay begins that recovery