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INDUCTION IN ARISTOTLE AND ST. THOMAS I N the article entitled " The ' Problem ' of Induction " Joseph J. Sikora proposed to treat of "the various meanings which the term ' induction ' may have," yet he specifically omitted any reference to the works of St. Thomas/ At the same time certain contemporary positions were put forward as though conceded, such as the supposition of two levels of intellectual knowledge, a " phenomenal " one and a " transphenomenal " one, permitting in turn two corresponding levels of induction, providing the principles for two sciences o£ nature: the " empiriological " and the " ontological." In- · duction on each of these levels was then divided into three: "abstractive," "ratiocinative" and "constructive." The first of these is a kind of intuition; the second, by contrast to the first, proceeds discursively from singulars; the third, by contrast with the second, represents an incomplete, rather than complete , enumeration. In all there are thus six types of induction on the intellectual level. With regard to the first division, that of intellectual knowledge into "phenomenal " and " transphenomenal," with its resulting division of the science of nature into " empiriological " and " ontological," even its protagonists do not claim that such a dual concept of the science of nature is present in St. Thomas. Its merits over the concept of the science of nature as viewed by St. Thomas would seem to have still to be demonstrated, so far as any fruitful progress deriving therefrom is concerned. With respect to the division of the inductive process itself into three species-the " abstractive," the " ratiocinative," and the "constructive "-since the author does cite a passage from Aristotle as an illustration of the second species, an examination 'Joseph J. Sikora, "The 'Problem' of Induction," The Thomist, XXII (1959), January, pp. 25-36. This omission appears to be an application of the author's conviction that an adequate discussion of such matters cannot be found in St. Thomas himself. 336 INDUCTION IN ARISTOTLE AND ST. THOMAS 337 of the text involved will show that it is actually an illustration of the inductive process leading to the self-evident principles mentioned under the first species. Finally, the second and third species will be seen to be distinguished, in the terms of Aristotle and St. Thomas, not on the basis of complete and incomplete enumeration, but simply on the basis of the necessary or merely ciialectical status of the principles attained. As a result, the author has substituted a threefold division of induction where in Aristotle and St. Thomas there exists a single process of induction terminating in principles which will be, according to the matter, either necessary or dialectical. It is the purpose of the ensuing pages to set down in clear relief the inductive process as expounded by Aristotle and St. Thomas in order that its contrast with the version in question may be fully evident. I. The general description of induction in Aristotle and St. Thomas. Since it is so often customary, in logic books and elsewhere, to speak of the " inductive" and the " deductive " processes as though they were two mutually independent methods arriving at the truth, it will perhaps not be amiss to underline the fact that in Aristotle and St. Thomas, as in thinking itself, the two processes are not separated and parallel, but complementary : the prerequisite deduction are premisses arrived at by induction. This is expressed by Aristotle and St. Thomas when they state that the principle o£ the syllogism, or deductive reasoning, is a universal attained by induction. Thus Aristotle states: Now induction is the starting-point which knowledge even of the universal presupposes, while syllogism proceeds from universals. There are therefore starting-points from which syllogism proceeds, which are not reached by syllogism; it is therefore by induction that they are acquired.2 • EthicB, VI, HS!lb 2/i. (Oxford translation.) 338 PIERRE H. CONWAY St. Thomas expounds this as follows: There is a twofold teaching from things known: one, indeed, through induction; the other, through syllogism [deduction]. Now induction is introduced in order to know some principle and some universal at which we arrive through experience of singulars, as is stated in Metaphysics I. But from the universal principles known previously in the aforesaid...

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