The Basic Idea
Like many of the concepts we come across in behavioral science, deduction, or deductive reasoning can seem terribly complicated, especially when applied to abstract or hypothetical situations. Thankfully, it’s something we do in our everyday lives, often without paying it too much attention.
Deduction is simply the logic we use when we draw from something we observe generally, and apply it to a specific case. Consider the below example;
- All horses have four legs.
- Bill is a horse.
- Therefore, Bill has four legs.
It helps to think of deduction as the opposite of induction – which happens when we move in the other direction, from a specific case to a generality.
- Bill is a horse.
- Bill has four legs.
- Therefore, all horses have four legs.
The degree to which we can rely on deduction depends on whether our argument is sound and valid. Deduction has been highly influential in philosophy, mathematics, computer science and more recently, artificial intelligence. Many economic decision-making models are also based on principles of deduction.1
I think, therefore I am
– René Descartes
