How to develop deduction (deductive abilities)
In logic, the science of correct thinking, there are two types of inferences - deduction and induction. The word “deduction” comes from the Latin deductio, which means “deduction.” Deduction is a method of thinking in which the particular is deduced logically, as a result of a chain of inferences, from the general situation. That is, this is a type of reasoning from the general to the specific.
The term “deduction” not so long ago was known only to a narrow circle of specialists, but thanks to the hero of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective novels Sherlock Holmes, who was called the master of the deductive method, the whole world learned about deduction.
Sherlock Holmes, starting from the general - the complete picture of the crime with its possible participants, went to the specific - looked at everyone who could have committed it, studied the motives, capabilities, behavior, and through logical conclusions determined the criminal, presenting him with indisputable evidence.
The simplest example of deductive reasoning:
- all metals are capable of conducting current;
- silver is a metal;
- therefore, silver also conducts current.
The method of deduction is opposed to the method of induction - when a conclusion is made on the basis of reasoning going from the particular to the general. For example:
- the Yenisei Irtysh and Lena rivers flow from south to north;
- the Yenisei, Irtysh and Lena rivers are Siberian rivers;
- therefore, all Siberian rivers flow from south to north.
Of course, these are simplified examples of deduction and induction. Conclusions must be based on experience, knowledge and specific facts. Otherwise, it would be impossible to avoid generalizations and draw erroneous conclusions. For example, “All men are deceivers, so you are a deceiver too.” Or “Vova is lazy, Tolik is lazy and Yura is lazy, which means all men are lazy.”
In everyday life, we use the simplest versions of deduction and induction without even realizing it. For example, when we see a disheveled man running headlong, we think he’s probably late for something. Or, looking out the window in the morning and noticing that the asphalt is strewn with wet leaves, we can assume that it rained and there was a strong wind at night. We tell the child not to sit late on a weekday, because we assume that then he will sleep through school, not have breakfast, etc.
Is this real
It's worth starting with something encouraging.
Sherlock Holmes' abilities are absolutely real. And in general, the legendary character was copied by Conan Doyle from a living person - professor at the University of Edinburgh Joseph Bell. He was widely known for his ability to guess a person's character, background and profession from the smallest details. On the other hand, the existence of one real outstanding person does not guarantee success for everyone who tries to repeat his achievements. Mastering abilities comparable to Holmes's is incredibly difficult. In a different scenario, Scotland Yard wouldn't be running around Baker Street for clues, right?
Expand your horizons
Only a comprehensively developed personality is able to draw conclusions based on a base of knowledge and experience. Otherwise it will just be guesswork. Expand your horizons. Deep knowledge in many areas can become a support in making the right decisions and making logical judgments.
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, films, books and travel will provide you with an invaluable service.
What he does is real. But what is he doing?
He acts, demonstrates his arrogance, pride and... remarkable intelligence. All this is justified by the ease with which he solves crimes. But how does he do it?
Sherlock Holmes's main weapon is the deductive method. Logic backed by intense attention to detail and outstanding intelligence.
To this day there is debate as to whether Holmes uses deduction or induction. But most likely the truth is somewhere in the middle. Sherlock Holmes accumulates his reasoning, experience, clues to the most complicated cases, systematizes them, collecting them into a common base, which he then successfully uses, using both deduction and induction. He does it brilliantly.
Most critics and researchers are inclined to believe that Conan Doyle did not make mistakes and Holmes really uses the deductive method. For simplicity of presentation, further we will talk about it.
Tips for developing deduction
So, deductive abilities should be developed in conjunction with logical thinking. It is very important to be patient and attentive here. Deduction does not tolerate haste; its methods can be compared to unraveling a ball of thread. If you make one careless movement, the knot becomes tighter. To train deductive abilities, it is important to follow several rules.
What does the mind of Sherlock Holmes do?
Deductive method
This is the detective's main weapon, which, however, would not work without a number of additional components.
Attention
Sherlock Holmes captures even the smallest details. If not for this skill, he simply would not have material for reasoning, evidence and leads.
Knowledge base
The detective himself said it best:
All crimes show great generic similarity. They (Scotland Yard agents) introduce me to the circumstances of a particular case. Knowing the details of a thousand cases, it would be strange not to solve the thousand and one.
Sherlock Holmes
The palaces of the mind
This is his excellent memory. This is the repository that he turns to almost every time he is looking for a solution to a new riddle. This is the knowledge, circumstances and facts accumulated by Holmes, a significant part of which cannot be obtained anywhere else.
Constant analysis
Sherlock Holmes analyzes, reflects, asks questions and answers them. Often he even resorts to double analysis, it is not in vain that the detective constantly acts together with his partner Dr. Watson.
Benefits of Deductive Reasoning
No one doubts the benefits of deductive thinking, because this way of thinking helps to improve oneself and find a solution to any situation, even a difficult one.
Thanks to deduction you:
- Learn to think outside the box and get out of any situation.
- Develop your intuition.
- Find an approach to any person.
- You will be good at understanding people.
- You will become an original, intellectual and creative person.
How to learn it
Pay attention to the little things
Bring your ability to pay attention to details to automaticity. In the end, only the details matter. They are the material for your reasoning and conclusions, they are the keys to unraveling and solving the problem. Learn to look. Look so as to see.
Develop your memory
This is the only way you can learn to analyze, derive your own statistics and form patterns. Only an excellent memory will save you in difficult times when you have no other sources of information. It is memory that will help you correctly analyze all the little things that captured your attention when you hit the trail.
Learn to formulate
Document your guesses and conclusions, draw up a “dossier” on passers-by, write verbal portraits, build harmonious and clear logical chains. This way you will not only gradually master Sherlock’s method, but also make your thinking clearer and clearer.
Go deeper into the area
One could say “broaden your horizons,” but Holmes would not approve of this lengthy formulation. Try to deepen your knowledge in your chosen field, avoid information garbage and useless knowledge. Try to grow in depth, not in breadth, no matter how absurd it may sound.
Concentrate
Above all, Holmes is a genius of concentration. He knows how to isolate himself from the world around him when he is busy with work, and does not allow distractions to tear him away from what is important. He should not be distracted by Mrs. Hudson's chatter or the explosion in the neighboring house on Baker Street. Only a high level of concentration will allow you to think soberly and logically. This is a prerequisite for mastering the method of deduction.
Learn body language
A source of information that many people forget about. Holmes never neglects him. He analyzes a person’s movements, how he behaves and gestures, pays attention to facial expressions and fine motor skills. Sometimes a person gives away his hidden intentions or involuntarily signals his own lies. Use these tips.
Develop your intuition
It was intuition that often suggested the famous detective the right decision. Hordes of charlatans have pretty much ruined the reputation of the sixth sense, but this does not mean that it should be neglected. Understand your intuition, learn to trust it and develop it.
Take notes
Moreover, notes of various kinds. It makes sense to keep a diary and write down what happened to you during the day. This is how you analyze everything that you have learned and noticed, summarize and draw a conclusion. The brain is actively working during such an analysis. You can keep field notes where you note your observations of the world around you and the people around you. This will help systematize observations and derive patterns. For some, a blog or an electronic diary is more suitable - everything is individual.
Ask questions
The more questions you ask, the better. Be critical of what is happening, look for reasons and explanations, sources of influence and influence. Build logical chains and cause-and-effect relationships. The ability to ask questions will gradually give rise to the skill of finding answers.
Solve problems and puzzles
Anything: from ordinary problems from school textbooks to complex puzzles involving logic and lateral thinking. These exercises will force your brain to work, look for solutions and answers. Just what you need to develop deductive thinking.
Create puzzles
Have you already learned how to quickly solve them? Try making your own. The task itself is unusual, so it won’t be easy. But the result is worth it.
Read. More. Better
It won't be what you read that matters, but how you do it. To develop deductive reasoning, you need to analyze what you read and pay attention to details. Compare information from different sources and draw parallels. Include the information received in the context of the knowledge you already have and expand your file cabinet.
Listen more, talk less
Holmes could not have unraveled cases so easily if he had not listened to every word of his client. Sometimes one word decides whether a case will hang in the air or be unraveled, whether the legendary detective will be interested in it or not. Just remember the huge hound in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and one word that changed the girl’s life in the second episode of the fourth season of the BBC series.
Love what you do
Only strong interest and great desire will help you reach the end. This is the only way you will not deviate from the path of constant difficulties and seemingly insoluble tasks. If Holmes had not loved his work, he would not have become a legend.
Practice
I saved the most important point for the finale. Practice is the key to mastering deductive reasoning. The key to the Holmes method. Practice anytime, anywhere. Even if at first you are not sure of the correctness of your judgments. Even if at first you will be more like Dr. Watson in your conclusions. Look at people on the subway, on the way to work, take a closer look at those around you at train stations and airports. Only a skill brought to automatism will become truly working.
Deductive thinking can be useful anywhere, and the talents of a legendary detective with constant practice will remain with you for life. Holmes' method is interesting in itself and produces surprising results. So why not try to master it?
Solve problems
In the process of any intellectual activity, slow thinking is trained. Solve problems in the exact sciences: physics, mathematics, chemistry. True, for this you will have to restore forgotten school-level knowledge.
What to do if you have been burning with hatred for general sciences since your school days? There is an exit! You can purchase several problem books, which contain games that develop deduction, puzzles, and puzzles, and solve one problem at a time, for example, during your lunch break or before bed. There are other ways to develop logic.
Chess and poker also contribute to the development of logic.
Reviews and comments
You can rate the article and share your thoughts on the subject by posting a comment in the form below.
We also recommend reading:
- Storytelling
- The Development of Sherlock Holmes' Intuition
- Traceology: when Sherlock follows a trail
- Abduction: the search for truth through the expansion of consciousness
- How to create a colorful character
- Scientific knowledge: basics
- How and why to develop thinking
- Questions to help you understand more
- The best blog materials in 2022: developing thinking, brain training, self-education
- 10 Commandments of a Profiler
- Intellectual superpowers
Key words:1Cognitive science
Be observant
How to develop the method of deduction? When communicating with other people, not only listen, but also look. It is useful to note the facial expressions and gestures of the interlocutor, the timbre of his voice and the intonation with which he speaks about a particular event. In this way, you can reveal a person’s intentions, find out how sincere, truthful and friendly he is.
To develop observation skills, it is useful to look at strangers: passers-by on the street, customers in a store, and others. Try to mentally guess where the man standing in line for milk works, where the long-haired girl with a large package is going, what kind of character the guy standing at the bus stop has, and so on. Observe the person’s face, hands, shoes, dress, bag... Try to guess his preferences and habits, what he does, without asking him about it. Of course, try to do this as inconspicuously as possible - no one likes to be scrutinized.
History of the term
The term “induction” was first mentioned in the works of Socrates. But he put a different meaning into it. Socrates called induction knowledge, which consisted in the search for a general definition to describe several particular cases. Aristotle describes induction as a comparative inference in which the mental process evaluates particular cases and reduces them to a common denominator. The thinker opposed induction to syllogism aimed at finding an average value.
During the Renaissance, Aristotle's legacy was reevaluated and criticized. In scientific circles, syllogism as a research method is denied, and the inductive method is considered the only way to obtain reliable information. F. Bacon is considered the creator of the modern inductive method. He refuses to use syllogism, but at the same time his theory of induction does not contradict syllogism at all. Bacon's inductive method is based on the principle of comparison. To come to a conclusion, it is necessary to analyze all cases and derive a pattern, that is, make a generalization.
The next attempt to abandon the syllogism in favor of induction was the study of J. Mill. He believed that in order to obtain a syllogical conclusion it is necessary to go from particular to particular, without striving for the general. He sees an inductive conclusion as an analysis of phenomena of the same order. All inferences require the use of four methods:
- Consent method. If the phenomena being studied have at least one common feature, it is likely to be the root cause.
- Method of difference. If two cases being compared have only one difference, but are otherwise similar, then this difference is the cause of the phenomenon.
- Residue method. For that part of the phenomenon that cannot be explained by an obvious cause, it is necessary to look for justification among the remaining versions. At first glance they often seem incredible, but one will eventually prove to be a credible explanation.
- Method of corresponding changes. If several phenomena change under the influence of one circumstance, there is probably a causal relationship between them.
It is noteworthy that the methods that Bacon presents as inductive have a deductive component. In particular, the residual method works on the principle of eliminating versions, moving from the general to the specific.
Women's logic
I am no smarter than other psychologists, therefore I cannot and do not have the right to claim that I am able to explain the phenomenon of female logic, but I noticed the key or one of the key differences from male logic. In philosophy, there are two methods of thinking: deductive
and
inductive
. The first is based on the logical construction of judgments about specific objects, based on general conclusions. For example, geometry is built precisely on deduction, because all its theorems are derived from axioms or already proven theorems. The train of thought goes in the direction from the general to the specific. The second is based on the logical construction of general judgments based on particular cases. For example, if someone found out that his girlfriend married a rich man, and after a while another one also married a rich man, then a third one married a rich man, then the fourth and fifth, then he concludes that all girls marry rich . The train of thought goes in the direction from the particular to the general. So, which of these methods of thinking is more typical for the female sex? It is not difficult to guess that he is deductive, in contrast to men who often think inductively. How does deduction manifest itself in women's logic? You may have noticed that women are more prejudiced than men. And the reason for this is the mechanism of “fitting to the correct answer.” The fact is that women often make a certain judgment based on one or more facts, and more often not even facts, but emotionally charged events, take it as an axiom and, using the method of deduction, begin to find cases that confirm it, becoming even more convinced that they are right. Everyone knows how easy it is to offend a girl with a word and how difficult, and sometimes impossible, to beg forgiveness. She makes a certain conclusion about the offender and begins to recall any, even the most insignificant, events that prove him, and they use a substitution of concepts: they interpret even a very harmless joke or compliment from the worst perspective. For example, they can inflate a minor remark into an insult, turn praise into flattery, perceive kind words as reproaches, and so on. The girl knows the answer, and she begins to adjust everything that can be adjusted to it. In this case, it seems unlikely to prove your point of view, because the inventive female mind will turn any spoken word against the one who said it. Perhaps you will object that women think inductively just like men. I partly disagree. Yes, a woman can make a judgment based on specific cases, but then deduction takes over, and she brings all other facts to the resulting image. I know one very jealous girl, whose example can illustrate all of the above. Her first experiences of dating and relationships with guys turned out to be very unsuccessful: they all cheated on her. Using the method of induction, she derived the axiom that all guys are womanizers. Since then, she is terribly jealous of any guy he has for any reason. She forbids him to communicate with any female representatives, even at work or at college, even via Internet chats, even viewing photographs of girls! She classifies any action as treason. More than once she left guys just because they simply communicated with other girls on ICQ or refused to remove all female nicknames from their contact list! It is very difficult to resist the powerful deductive machine built into the female brain. The best thing a man can do to avoid ruining a relationship is to be extremely careful, careful, and carefully weigh every word. At the same time, you can use the great power of prejudice and “fitting by response”, forming a positive image of yourself in the girl’s mind, creating emotionally charged situations.
Abduction concept
Abduction is an independent offshoot of the stage of scientific research, which asks the general question: “In what way can a person create a true and testable theory about the world around him?” How did certain judgments appear in the human mind, on the basis of what thought processes and data?
One of the leading representatives of analytical philosophy, Charles Peirce, identifies abduction as one of the main classes for constructing a conclusion (together with induction and deduction). It brings together all work activities that create new theories and concepts.
Deduction proves that the predicted result is an obvious consequence of the operation of the general rule in relation to a specific case. Abduction allows you to build a new explanatory hypothesis on the basis of a general rule and an identified fact.
Don't forget about memory
You probably remember the episode where Sherlock doesn't remember that the Earth revolves around the Sun. No, it’s not at all a matter of the great detective’s poor memory. He admits that he deliberately cleared his brain of unnecessary information. What conclusions can be drawn from this? Firstly, memory can and should be trained: you will be surprised how much information your brain can accommodate. Secondly, the choice of information should be approached responsibly. Don't clutter your head with numerous advertising posters, stupid literature and low-brow films. Remember: this will all be stored in your memory. Therefore, it is worth considering: do you really need this information?
Application of induction in philosophy
The English encyclopedist and philosopher W. Whewell was J. Mill's main opponent. But he also recognized induction as a necessary and indispensable method of knowledge in philosophy. In the book “Philosophy of Inductive Sciences,” he revised the very essence of scientific knowledge, bringing science out of the realm of the vague and closed into the realm of the accessible and necessary. Thanks to his work, the scientific community was able to conduct research openly. Whewell popularized the word “science” itself, which replaced natural philosophy. The philosopher's rethinking of the theory of induction allowed it to become one of the main research methods.
Article information
This article was produced by our experienced team of editors and researchers, who reviewed it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Categories: Personal Development
In other languages:
English: Develop the 'Sherlock Holmes' Intuition, Italiano: Sviluppare l'Intuito alla Maniera di Sherlock Holmes, Español: desarrollar la intuición de Sherlock Holmes, Português: Desenvolver a Intuição de Sherlock Holmes, Français: développer l'intuition de Sherlock Holmes, Deutsch: Eine Intuition wie Sherlock Holmes entwickeln, 中文: 培养福尔摩斯式的直觉能力, Nederlands: Intuïtie als die van Sherlock Holmes ontwikkelen, Tiếng Việt: Phát triển trực giác “Sherlock Homes ", العربية: التمتع بسرعة بديهة شارلوك هولمز
This page has been viewed 34,765 times.
Was this article helpful?
Not really
