A Philosophical Treatise on the Connection of Scientific Reasoning with Fuzzy Logic

Evangelos Athanassopoulos and Michael Gr. Voskoglou
Additional contact information
Evangelos Athanassopoulos: Independent Researcher, Giannakopoulou 39, 27300 Gastouni, Greece
Michael Gr. Voskoglou: Department of Applied Mathematics, Graduate Technological Educational Institute of Western Greece, 22334 Patras, Greece

Mathematics, 2020, vol. 8, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: The present article studies the connection of scientific reasoning with fuzzy logic. Induction and deduction are the two main types of human reasoning. Although deduction is the basis of the scientific method, almost all the scientific progress (with pure mathematics being probably the unique exception) has its roots to inductive reasoning. Fuzzy logic gives to the disdainful by the classical/bivalent logic induction its proper place and importance as a fundamental component of the scientific reasoning. The error of induction is transferred to deductive reasoning through its premises. Consequently, although deduction is always a valid process, it is not an infallible method. Thus, there is a need of quantifying the degree of truth not only of the inductive, but also of the deductive arguments. In the former case, probability and statistics and of course fuzzy logic in cases of imprecision are the tools available for this purpose. In the latter case, the Bayesian probabilities play a dominant role. As many specialists argue nowadays, the whole science could be viewed as a Bayesian process. A timely example, concerning the validity of the viruses’ tests, is presented, illustrating the importance of the Bayesian processes for scientific reasoning.

Keywords: inductive and deductive reasoning; fuzzy logic (FL); scientific method; probability and statistics; Bayesian probabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/6/875/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/6/875/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:8:y:2020:i:6:p:875-:d:365590

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().