Philosophy & Logic - Questions and Answers - Valid, Invalid, Deductive and Inductive Arguments 

Philosophy & Logic - Questions and Answers - Valid, Invalid, Deductive and Inductive Arguments
Inductive argument.
An inductive argument is that kind of argument that its premise(s) only support, but do not guarantee its conclusion. Inductive argument does not claim that their premises, even if true, support their conclusions with certainty. Furthermore, in any inductive mode of reasoning, the conclusion logically implies an item of information not necessarily implied by the premises; “and that which can be confirmed or refuted only on the basis of evidence drawn from sense experience” (Ade-Ali, 2000:265). You also need to know that inductive argument is structured in such way that from one set of propositions (premises), it moves to another (conclusion); also proceeds from the experienced (particular) to the inexperienced (general); from the known to the unknown. For instance;
Mr. Roger Miller is a Cameroonian and a football player.
Mr. Etoo Fils is a Cameroonian and a football player.
Mr. Rigobert Song is a Cameroonian and a football player. Therefore,
All Cameroonians are football players.
You can see that in the above example, the conclusion that all Cameroonians are football players (general proposition) is arrived at by sampling some members of the class of persons who are Cameroonians. But for some logicians (Minimah & Inoka, 1997) there are also some “cases in which the propositions of an inductive argument which are used as premises and conclusions may all be either general propositions or particular prepositions”.