Monday, September 10, 2012
Week 4 ; Ch.7 #1
In chapter 7, it states that an inductive argument is an argument that states something is probably true or false, but not strongly supported. The book says that inductive arguments usually use the phrases, probably, most likely, chances are that, it is reasonable to suppose that, we can expect that, and it seems probable that. A recent example of an inductive argument that I used in the past week was when I was at work. I work at the Jamba Juice in the Student Union, and I was working the cash register one day. A customer was really indecisive on what smoothie they wanted, so I asked them if they would rather have something fruity or something creamy. They replied that they wanted something fruity, so I asked them what their favorite fruits were to try and help narrow down their wide variety of selections. They said that two of their top favorite fruits were strawberries and peaches. From this, I asked them if they wanted something sour or sweet. They said they wanted to try something sour, so I told them that they would probably like the Strawberry Surf Rider or Caribbean Passion because both drinks are sour/tart, and they have both of the fruits that they wanted. The customer finally ordered and decided to get a Caribbean Passion. This example is both a deductive and inductive argument because I used the process of elimination to narrow down the choices, but I also left them to decide which drink they wanted out of two different ones because they would probably like both according to the information they told me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You have a really good personal example of an inductive argument! I am also always indecisive just like your customer was at Jamba Juice. I can never figure out what I want. So what I do is I narrow down my choices myself like the way you told your customer to do. I first think about my favorite fruits but I also think about which one I haven’t had for the longest time, which sometimes shortens down my list of drinks to the ones I really want. Sometimes though, I’m torn between two choices that I really want and can’t decide on a particular one.
ReplyDeleteI also really like your example of inductive argument. I kind of mentioned the same thing on my post only I was the one deciding what to get at a coffee place. I used generalizations based on what the population likes and that is how I came to a decision. You also did a similar thing by supposing or predicting what the customer is going to enjoy which is how you used inductive reasoning. It’s also cool how you incorporated deductive reasoning through the process of elimination. I can also be an indecisive customer too so that’s actually a good way to choose what to get or buy.
ReplyDelete