4.3. Inductive Knowledge
As already stated, inductive knowledge is caused by an inference, called induction (equation (3)), where knowledge claim and provenance are not identical. Instead, knowledge provenance herein refers to pieces of observations, experimental data, etc. There exist three categories of inductive knowledge—informal-induction-based knowledge, relation-of-ideas-assisted inductive knowledge, and complex induction-based knowledge—described as follows.
The first category can be described using the scenario depicted in Figure 3. Figure 3(a ) depicts plots of machining forces, such as the cutting force (Fc ), thrust force (Ft ), and feed force (Ff ). The underlying machining experiments have been reported by Ullah (2018). Figure 3(b ) depicts a concept map that comprises a piece of informal-induction-based knowledge that underlies the provenance depicted in Figure 3(a ). The concept map depicted in Figure 3(b ) boils down to following statements—(1) The manufacturing process called turning exhibits machining force; (2) Machining force comprises three orthogonal components—cutting force (Fc ), thrust force (Ft ), and feed force (Ff ); and (3) Experimental results (shown here) demonstrate that the three orthogonal components are related as Fc >Ft > Ff . The last statement is an example of informal-induction-based knowledge, because it is derived by visually inspecting datasets depicted in Figure 3(a ) without performing formal computations. The truthiness of such knowledge can be verified using provenance. Thus, data attached to the node “shown here” must direct users to the URL https://doi.org/10.3390/jmmp2040068 from where they can extract relevant data. The other two statements represent definitional knowledge.