Thinking is an important cognitive process for a person, through which he acquires new knowledge, develops and becomes better. There are different thinking techniques that can be used at any time and in different situations.
What is deduction?
The method of thinking, by which logical conclusions are drawn about a particular subject or situation on the basis of general information, is called deduction. In Latin, this word means "output or logical inference". A person uses well-known information and specific details, analyzes, adding facts to a certain chain, and concludes in conclusion. The method of deduction became known through books and films about the detective Sherlock Holmes.
Deduction in Philosophy
To use deductive thinking to build scientific knowledge began in ancient times. Famous philosophers, for example, Plato, Aristotle and Euclid, used it to make inferences based on existing information. Deduction in philosophy is a concept that different minds interpreted and understood in their own way. Descartes considered this type of thinking to be like intuition, through which a person can gain knowledge through reflection. His opinion on what deduction was, Leibniz and Wolf had, considering it the basis for obtaining true knowledge.
Deduction in Psychology
Thinking is used in different directions, but there are areas aimed at studying the deduction itself. The main purpose of psychology is to study the development and violation of deductive reasoning in humans. This is due to the fact that since this type of thinking implies a movement from general information to a specific analysis, then all mental processes are involved. The theory of deduction is studied in the process of the formation of concepts and solutions of different problems.
Deduction - advantages and disadvantages
In order to better understand the possibilities of the deductive method of thinking, one must understand its advantages and disadvantages.
- It helps to save time and reduce the volume of the material presented.
- You can use it even when there is no prior knowledge in a particular field.
- Deductive reasoning contributes to the development of logical, evidence-based thinking.
- Gives general knowledge, concepts and skills.
- Helps to test research hypotheses as plausible explanations.
- Improves the causal thinking of practitioners.
Minuses:
- The person in most cases gets knowledge in the finished form, that is, does not study the information.
- In some cases it is difficult to draw a specific case under the general rule.
- It can not be used to discover new phenomena, laws and hypotheses.
Deduction and Induction
If the meaning of the first term is already understood, then, as regards induction, it is a technique for constructing a general derivation based on private premises. He does not use logical laws, but relies on some psychological and factual information that is purely formal. Deduction and induction are two important principles that complement each other. For a better understanding, it is worth considering an example:
- Deduction from general to particular implies obtaining from one truthful information another, and it will be true. For example, all poets are writers, a conclusion: Pushkin is a poet and writer.
- Induction is an inference that arises from the knowledge of some of the objects and leads to generalization, so they say that there is a transition from reliable information to probable. For example, Pushkin is a poet, like Blok and Mayakovsky, which means that all people are poets.
How to develop deduction?
Each person has the opportunity to develop in himself deductive thinking, which is useful in different life situations.
- Games . For the development of memory you can use different games: chess, puzzles, Sudoku and even card entertainment make players think through their moves and memorize cards.
- Solving problems . That's when the school program in physics, mathematics and other sciences comes in handy. During the solution of problems, slow thinking training takes place. Do not dwell on one version of the solution and it is recommended to look at the problem from a different point of view, offering an alternative.
- Knowledge expansion . The development of deduction implies that a person must constantly work to increase his horizons, "absorbing" a lot of information from different areas. This will help in the future build their conclusions, based on specific knowledge and experience.
- Be observant . Deduction in practice is impossible if a person does not know how to notice important details. During communication with people, it is recommended to pay attention to gestures, facial expressions, timbre of voice and other nuances that will help to understand the intentions of the interlocutor, to calculate his sincerity and so on. Being in public transport, watch people and make different assumptions, for example, where the person is going, what he does and much more.
Deduction - Exercises
To develop deductive thinking, it is recommended to train attention, abstract thinking and operative memory. There is a simple exercise, how to learn deduction, which can be performed by adults and children:
- Use any pictures and it's better if they have a lot of small details. Look at the image for a minute, trying to memorize as much detail as possible, and then write down everything that is stored in memory and check. Gradually shorten the viewing time.
- Use similar words and try to find the maximum number of differences in them. For example: oak / pine, landscape / portrait, poem / fairy tale and so on. Still experts recommend to learn to read words on the contrary.
- Write down the names of people and the dates of a particular event in their life. Enough of four positions. Read them three times, and then, write down everything that is remembered.
Deductive method of thinking - books
One of the important ways for the development of deductive thinking is to read books. Many people do not even suspect how much of this benefit: there is a training of memory, an expansion of horizons and personal growth . To apply the deductive method, it is necessary not just to read the literature, but to analyze the described situations, remember, compare and conduct other manipulations.
- For those who are interested in what deduction is, it will be interesting to read the work of the author of this method of thinking - Rene Descartes "Discourse on the method to correctly guide your mind and find the truth in the sciences."
- To the recommended literature are various detectives, for example, the classic - AK Doyle "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and many worthwhile authors: A. Christie, D. Dontsova, S. Shepard and others. Reading such literature it is necessary to apply the deductive method of thinking in order to guess who can be a criminal.