The Ontological Ground of Induction: Constituent Logic and the Possibility of Generated Structure

We argue that the possibility of induction is grounded in determinate objecthood. Identity, non-collapse, determinacy, and rendering make objects capable of determinate relation; determinate relations are themselves objects; reason actualizes this potential by positing generative structures. Induction states the exhaustiveness of such a posit and so holds wherever a start and a generating relation determine a structure: numbers, strings, trees, iterations. The argument answers Poincaré's charge of circularity and shows how a homogeneous series, arbitrarily divided, yields the order structures of the natural numbers and integers. It explains why the objects and relations that formal theories presuppose are available.