Comparative analysis of inductive and deductive thinking with Immanuel Kant

Among general logical methods of cognition and thinking, the most common are
deductive and inductive methods. Deduction and induction are the most important types of
thinking and conclusions play a huge role in the process of obtaining new knowledge based
on deduction from previously obtained ones. However, these forms of thinking are also
considered as special methods and techniques of cognition. Deduction is the transition in the
cognition process from general knowledge about a certain class of objects to particular and
individual knowledge. In deduction, general knowledge serves as the starting point of
reasoning, and this general knowledge is assumed to be ready existing. Induction, in turn, is a
transition in the process of thinking from private knowledge to general knowledge, from
knowledge of a lesser degree of generality to knowledge of a greater degree of generality.
Induction doesn’t guarantee the achievement of truth, but only leads to it, helps to search for
truth [1].
In the process of scientific knowledge, deduction and induction aren’t used in
isolation, apart from each other. However, in the history of philosophy, attempts were made
to contrast induction and deduction, for example, Immanuel Kant in his work “Critique of
Pure Reason” describes the concept of transcendental deduction, the main task of which is to
justify the validity of a priori application of categories to objects and show their possibility as
principles of a priori synthetic knowledge [2]. Kant distinguishes between perception and
experience. The first, from his point of view, doesn’t involve thinking, but only the
organization of sensations by means of a priori or inductive forms of space and time.
However, experience is possible only based on applying inductive categories of the mind to
sensory perception; it’s the result of constructive activity of thinking. Knowledge generating
thinking presupposes a categorical synthesis of sensory diversity. This synthesis is possible in
the case of pure natural science (dealing with external experience, that is, deduction) and pure
mathematics (dealing with a priori forms of sensory intuition, that is, induction).
Thinking involves using categories that aren’t just the most general concepts, but
ways of constructing the experience itself. According to Kant, categories express forms of
judgment, different ways of carrying out the main thought activity – the synthesis of sensory
diversity, different and necessary ways of constructing experience [2]. Based on the
constructed experience, it’s possible to form concepts about individual objects and situations,
which is deductive thinking.
The starting point of deduction is the concept of apperception. Kant asserts that all
possible representations for us must be connected in the unity of apperception, that is, in the
ego. Categories are the necessary conditions for this connection. Kant carries out the proof of
this central position through the analysis of the objective judgments structure of experience
based on the use of categories, and the postulate about the transcendental object parallelism
and the apperception transcendental unity (this allows us to reverse the ego need for
categorical syntheses for attributing representations to the object). As a result, Kant concludes
that all possible perceptions as conscious, i.e., self-related, contemplations must be subject to
categories [3]. This means the possibility of anticipation of subject forms of experience, i.e., a
priori knowledge of objects of possible experience using categories. Within the framework of
deduction, Kant develops the doctrine of cognitive abilities, a special role among which is
played by the transcendental imagination, which connects sensuality and reason. It’s the
imagination, obeying categorical “instructions”, that legislates the world of phenomena.
Kant’s deduction of categories has caused numerous discussions in modern historical and
philosophical literature.

References

1. Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - Moscow, 1983.

2. Kant, I. (1829). Critique of Pure Reason. – London, Harvard College Library, p. 213,
364-370, 389 (856).
3. Kant, I. (2008). The Metaphysics of Morals. – The Floating Press, p. 117, 120 (448).