Wellman's typology of arguments

In this paper Wellman's classification of arguments into deductive, inductive, and conductive and his way of defining these terms is shown to be both internally inconsistent and externally under-motivated; he does not succeed in showing that there are no types of argument that are both deductive and inductive or that there are types of argument that are neither deductive nor inductive, though we may concede that our classifying an argument as valid does not always require appeal or reference to the rules of deduction or induction. This is an epistemological or even meta-epistemological point about how we make certain classifications and implies nothing about the classification itself. Taking this meta-epistemological perspective also affects an entire battery of arguments aimed against the reconstruction of arguments as deductive enthymemes; seeing that an argument is valid without the help of a missing premise does not mean that such a premise is unnecessary or that the argument is non-deductive.


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