Making inferences (an educated guess based on facts, evidence, or your own prior knowledge) is one piece of drawing a conclusion. A conclusion is drawn through combining several inferences to make a judgement. It can also be formed through analyzing cause and effect relationships; categorizing; and comparing and contrasting information.
Below, read the excerpt from War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy. Then, answer the related question (answers are present at the bottom of the page).
As soon as Natasha had finished [singing] she went up to him and asked how he liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he liked her singing as he liked everything she did.
Prince Andrew left the Rostovs’ late in the evening. He went to bed from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not enter his head that he was in love with Natasha; he was not thinking about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself. “Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!” thought he.
War and Peace Chapter 19 Book 6 by Lev Tolstoy
What is the most logical conclusion to draw about Prince Andrew?
- Prince Andrew hates sleeping.
- Prince Andrew was influenced by Natasha’s singing and will now direct his life toward his own music career
- Prince Andrew’s love for Natasha changed his perspective on being happy.
- Prince Andrew decided that the dead are less interesting than those alive.
A generalization is a broad statement about people, places, or events. It can take the form of a hypothesis, an explanation of an idea, or an observation based on facts or details. Without facts or evidence, the generalization becomes a stereotype.
Generalization examples:
- Many people in Juneau have relatives somewhere in Southeast Alaska
- Most children struggle learning to swim
Stereotype examples:
- All boys love to play sports
- Kids are addicted to their phones
When determining the claims validity, it’s important to note what type of evidence is required to back it up. In the stereotype, “Kids are addicted to their phones,” we must prove that every kid that exists is addicted to their phone. If a survey could somehow verify that the majority of kids are indeed addicted, we still couldn’t comprehensively say that all kids are addicted (since some still aren’t). Providing this evidence, we could state that many kids are addicted.
Look at the below questions and determine whether each one is a valid generalization or an invalid stereotype (answers are present at the bottom of the page).
- Most birds have wings.
- People have to be nice to be economically successful.
- Many places in Europe have old structures.
- To be healthy, you must run daily.
- Some people in Alaska love skiing.
- Everyone in Alaska loves skiing.
Drawing conclusions and making generalizations through combining inferences is an example of synthesizing information. A synthesis is a combination of information from one or more sources to create an entirely new idea. This idea can typically go beyond the bounds each text and can be applied to other situations. For example, you could take information from sources on beliefs, customs, laws, and art and synthesize it into a paper about culture.
Below, read the two passages. Then, answer the related question (answers are present at the bottom of the page).
Mill’s argument for the freedom of thought and discussion is given in chapter 2 of On Liberty, and in it he aims to show that there should be no attempt “to control the expression of opinion.” The chapter takes the form of a proof from the exhaustion of cases. Mill claims that, for any opinion P which is a candidate for suppression, P must be either: (i) true, (ii) false, or (iii) partially true. Whichever is the case, he argues, P’s assertion will be useful for discovering and maintaining the truth—and as such should be welcome. True beliefs are in general suppressed because, though they are true, they are thought to be false. To assume that because one thinks a view is false, it should be suppressed, Mill argues, is to assume infallibility for one’s beliefs. Human beings, though, are not creatures capable of infallible knowledge. Mill’s empiricism leads him to believe that we do not have direct a priori insight into the truth, and that all of our beliefs must remain open to revision in light of further observation. As such, discussion must remain open—even on issues which we think securely established. It might be argued, he observes, that certain true beliefs should be suppressed because, although true, they are thought to be harmful. But to argue that we should suppress a view because it is harmful would either be to assume infallibility on its status as harmful, or to allow debate on that question—which in turn must involve debate on the substantive issue itself. Opinions belonging to case (i) therefore ought to not to be suppressed. Even when a belief is false, Mill holds, its assertion may still be conducive to securing the truth—and as such, opinions belonging to case (ii) should not be suppressed. The assertion of false opinions leads to debate—which in turn leads to greater understanding. Without active defence of a truth, we risk losing sense of its real meaning, with genuine knowledge becoming reduced to “phrases retained by rote.” It is therefore just as important to hear counterarguments to the truth as its re-articulation.
Credit to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/#LibeFreeSpee
Mill’s argument for freedom of character—“Individuality” —is given in chapter 3 of On Liberty, and is two-pronged. On the one hand, he argues that it is best for individuals that they are given freedom and space to develop their own character. On the other, he argues that it best for society, too. Mill’s argument for the former is Romantic in tone, maintaining that, because different individuals have different natures, they must be given space to discover and develop their own personalities and ways of living.
“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develope itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” The basic diversity of human beings means it is not productive for there to exist an expectation that all individuals will live in a similar manner. In this sense, the argument is a pragmatic one: that one mode of life is unlikely to fit all individual tastes. But Mill also suggests that it is a central feature of the good life that it be a life chosen for oneself. Along with other thinkers of the period—Arnold, Nietzsche, and Schiller are all useful points of comparison—Mill believes that the great danger of mass-society is self-repression and conformism, leading to the sapping of human energy and creativity. Victorian society was, he claimed, governed by an ethos of propriety based on “Christian self-denial”; Mill, in contrast, encourages the “Greek ideal of self-development.” It is individuals that are well-rounded, authentic and spontaneous, he believes, that are most truly happy. It is also important for society more broadly that individuals be free to develop their own ways of living. It is beneficial to have a rich variety of “experiments of living” on display in any given society, to allow individuals to be inspired by a wide range of possible forms of life. And the variety that exists within such a context, Mill thinks, key to maintaining social progress. A “diversity of character and culture” provides the engine of productive tension that drives a nation forward. Without it, Mill fears “Chinese stationariness”