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New Developments in Chinese Studies of  
Contemporary Inductive Logic
REN Xiaoming*
Abstract 
Contemporary Chinese studies in inductive logic have long revolved around the unfold-
ing of a philosophical investigation into Hume’s problem. Led by research in probabil-
istic logic, the principal content of contemporary Chinese logic consists of research into 
Pascalean and non-Pascalean probabilistic logic, precise and imprecise probabilistic logic, 
pure inductive logic and material inductive logic. A newly arisen trend in the develop-
ment of Chinese inductive logic is represented by the research on causal inference, which 
came into vogue within the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in the last few years. Conse-
quently, the future developmental tendency will probably gravitate towards the new par-
adigms that will emerge from the mutual contest and interactions between probabilistic 
logic and causal logic. 
Keywords: inductive logic, Hume’s problem, China, new developments
Nov razvoj v kitajskih raziskavah sodobne induktivne logike
Izvleček
Sodobne kitajske raziskave induktivne logike so dolgo potekale na področju pojasnjevanja 
filozofskih raziskav Humovega problema. Pod okriljem raziskav verjetnostne logike ses-
toji jedrna vsebina sodobne kitajske logike iz raziskav paskalovske in nepaskalovske ver-
jetnostne logike, natančne in nenatančne verjetnostne logike, čiste induktivne logike ter 
materialne induktivne logike. Novonastalo smer v razvoju kitajske induktivne logike pa 
predstavljajo raziskave vzročnega sklepanja, ki so v zadnjih nekaj letih postale popularne 
na področju umetne inteligence (UI). Posledično se bodo prihodnji razvojni trendi verje-
tno nagibali proti novim paradigmam, ki bodo vzniknile iz medsebojnega tekmovanja ter 
interakcij med verjetnostno in vzročno logiko.
Ključne besede: induktivna logika, Humov problem, Kitajska, nov razvoj 
* REN Xiaoming, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Nankai University, 
Tianjin (China).
 Email: renxiaoming1953@163.com
DOI: 10.4312/as.2022.10.2.147-161
Azijske_studije_2022_2_FINAL.indd   147 5. 05. 2022   15:46:43