Induction and knowledge-what

• Within analytic philosophy, induction has been seen as a problem concerning inferences that have been analysed as relations between sentences. In this article, we argue that induction does not primarily concern relations between sentences, but between properties and categories. We outline a new approach to induction that is based on two theses. The first thesis is epistemological. We submit that there is not only knowledge-how and knowledge-that, but also knowledge-what. Knowledge-what concerns relations between properties and categories and we argue that it cannot be reduced to knowledge-that. We support the partition of knowledge by mapping it onto the long-term memory systems: procedural, semantic and episodic memory. The second thesis is that the role of inductive reasoning is to generate knowledge-what. We use conceptual spaces to model knowledge-what and the relations between properties and categories involved in induction.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Inductive inferences

Knowledge-what

Semantic memory

Conceptual knowledge

Naturalistic epistemology

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)