45 h 56 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How do you know whether your strongest beliefs rest on evidence—or on habits you have never questioned?
In A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, John Stuart Mill asks how we judge evidence and test what we believe. He begins with words and definitions, then examines reasoning itself. His aim is practical: a method that scientists, lawyers, doctors and citizens can use to distinguish sound conclusions from claims that lack proof.
Against the view that some truths need no proof, Mill argues that knowledge of the world rests on experience. He explores induction, cause and experimental inquiry, then turns to fallacies and the study of society. The challenge is to reason carefully when causes are tangled and familiar beliefs seem too certain to question.
What you’ll discover
- Clear words, clearer thought Explore why Mill starts with language, and how muddy definitions can cloud an argument.
- A challenge to familiar reasoning Follow his argument that the syllogism proves nothing beyond what its premises already contain.
- Experience as the test Examine induction as Mill's foundation for gaining real knowledge about the world.
- Methods for finding causes Discover four methods of experimental inquiry, alongside the complications that limit their use.
- Logic beyond the laboratory Consider Mill's hope that careful inquiry can uncover laws of mind and society.
Who will love it
For readers who love philosophy, science and the history of ideas, and enjoy following a careful argument step by step. Mill explores evidence, cause, experimental inquiry and the study of human society.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Logic is the art of judging evidence
- Clear words and propositions come first
- The syllogism proves nothing you did not know
- All real knowledge rests on induction from experience
- A cause is an unconditional invariable sequence
- Four methods help find causes by experiment
- Real causes are tangled, so reasoning must combine methods
- Careful classification and fallacy-spotting protect good thinking
- Human life can be studied by the same methods
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Sistema di logica deduttiva e induttiva
by John Stuart Mill · 1843
Mill puts belief to the test of experience, showing how to judge evidence and uncover causes.
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In short
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive is a treatise by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1843. Mill wrote it to answer a plain question.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Logic is the art of judging evidence
Mill opens by asking what logic is for. He does not treat it as a game with words. For him it is the study of the operations of the mind that help us weigh evidence, so that we can tell when a belief is well founded and when it is not.
He separates what we know directly from what we infer. We know our own sensations and feelings straight away. Almost everything else, from the weather tomorrow to the cause of a disease, is reached by reasoning from something else. If so, the quality of our reasoning decides the quality of nearly all we believe.
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What is A System of Logic by John Stuart Mill about?
It is a study of how we reason and how we judge evidence. Mill explains words and propositions, the limits of the syllogism, induction, cause, and methods of experiment, then applies them to the study of mind and society.
What are Mill's methods of induction?
They are four rules for finding causes by comparing cases: agreement, difference, residues and concomitant variations. Mill also describes a joint method of agreement and difference. They remain a standard way to teach how causal claims are tested.
What does Mill mean by denotation and connotation?
A name denotes the things it applies to and connotes the attributes that make it apply. White denotes snow and paper and connotes the quality of whiteness. Proper names, in Mill's view, only denote and carry no such meaning.
The author
John Stuart Mill
1806–1873 · British philosopher and political economist
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher and political economist, born in London in 1806. He wrote A System of Logic (1843), On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869). He lived in England and France and died in Avignon in 1873. His Autobiography appeared that year.
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