 An inductive argument is an argument where the truth of the premises makes the conclusion more likely to be true, but it's not guaranteed. Now, maybe this sounds like a bad thing, but it's really not. Inductive arguments let us reach conclusions that we couldn't reach with other sorts of arguments. So, for example, the physical sciences. The physical sciences relies heavily, if not solely, on inductive arguments. Now, don't misunderstand me to say, aha, the physical sciences are so fallible. Well, no. Chances are any competitor that you might come up with for the physical sciences also relies upon inductive arguments. It just does a much worse job. Now, inductive arguments are arguments where the truth of the premises makes the conclusion more likely to be true, but does not guarantee it. In contrast, deductive arguments are arguments where the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. It's impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Now, a really prime example of this is mathematics. The truth of the conclusion is necessitated. I say the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. That's true, but the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed not simply because you have true premises, but because it's the proper form. Now, the form of these arguments can be a little cumbersome, a little complicated. They require quite a bit of training. We'll get to deductive arguments later on, but as again, by example, mathematics. You can have a bunch of numbers and okay, that's fine. You can have relationships between numbers. Okay, that's fine, but it isn't until you put those relationships, those numbers and a proper mathematical form that you start generating to true conclusions. The deductive arguments are ones where the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Inductive arguments are strong or weak and there's a something of a continuum between the two. It's not, they're either strong or they're weak or nothing in between. Now, there's degrees of strength with inductive arguments. It's one of the, one of the things also that really can contrasts it to deductive arguments. You know, deductive arguments are either valid or invalid, sound or unsound. There's no gray area in there. Inductive arguments have strength primarily based upon the strength of the evidence. Now, there are forms for inductive arguments. For example, we've got analogies. We have argument from authority. Yes, argument from authority is a good inductive argument form. There's statistical syllogism. There's even methods for figuring out the cause of a thing. We'll get to those later on. Those are the forms of inductive argument. Now, you can have a solid form and that's fine, right? Forms are good as far as they go, but really the strength of an inductive argument relies primarily on the strength of the evidence. There is such a thing as good or bad evidence. There's very definitely such a thing as good or bad evidence. And inductive arguments, strength of an inductive argument relies primarily on the evidence, not on the form. And we have, you know, I'm not saying forms are nothing, right? Forms are also important. But when you have a inductive argument with the proper form and strong evidence, that is a cogent inductive argument. It has strong evidence on the proper form. Then we have a cogent inductive argument. And this is contrasted to a deductive argument.