[Inquiry] Re: Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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INT.  Note 24

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2.2.3.  Inquiry (concl.)

In order to comprehend the bearing of inductive reasoning on the closing
phases of inquiry there are a couple of observations that we should make:

1.  First, we need to recognize that smaller inquiries
    are typically woven into larger inquiries, whether
    we view the whole pattern of inquiry as carried on
    by a single agent or by a complex community.

2.  Further, we need to consider the different ways
    in which the particular instances of inquiry can
    be related to ongoing inquiries at larger scales.
    Three modes of inductive interaction between the
    micro-inquiries and the macro-inquiries that are
    salient here can be described under the headings
    of the Learning, the Transfer, and the Testing
    of rules.

Throughout inquiry the reasoner makes use of rules that
have to be transported across intervals of experience,
from the masses of experience where they are learned
to the moments of experience where they are applied.
Inductive reasoning is involved in the learning and
the transfer of these rules, both in accumulating
a knowledge base and in carrying it through the
the times between acquisition and application.

a.  Learning.  The principal way that induction contributes
    to an ongoing inquiry is through the learning of rules,
    that is, by creating each of the rules that goes into
    the knowledge base, or ever gets used along the way.

b.  Transfer.  The continuing way that induction contributes
    to an ongoing inquiry is through the exploit of analogy,
    a two-step combination of induction and deduction that
    serves to transfer rules from one context to another.

c.  Testing.  Finally, every inquiry that makes use of
    a knowledge base constitutes a "field test" of its
    accumulated contents.  If the knowledge base fails
    to serve any live inquiry in a satisfactory manner,
    then there is a prima facie reason to reconsider
    and possibly to amend some of its rules.

I will next describe how these principles
of learning, transfer, and testing apply
to John Dewey's "Sign of Rain" example.

Jon Awbrey

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