Inductive Reasoning

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his experience was that it is better to be part than stupid, “But I did see that it’s better to be smart than stupid, just as light is better than darkness. Even so, though the smart ones see where they’re going and the stupid ones grope in the dark, they’re all the same in the end. One fate for all—and that’s it” (2:12-14). He says this because the smart ones can see what they are going to be doing and have better understanding of what they are about to experience in life. Although the smarter ones may seem better off having a good, happy life, everyone has the same fate- death. When the speaker realized that everyone has the same fate, he wondered what the point of being smart was anyways.

Inductive reasoning is a valuable writing tool to persuade the reader because it makes your point seem more valid, even if it is wrong. This passage in Ecclesiastes uses inductive reasoning to argue that life is meaningless. The speaker talks of things that would normally make a person happy, but it did not make him happy so he concludes that nothing will make anyone happy. As a reader, this argument was almost believable because he told us what he has done in his life and that putting in that much hard work is pointless because it will not change anything in the end. What makes it hard to believe is that everyone can experience things differently and not all people will find sadness and anger in the things that he has chosen to do with his life.