Poincaré’s Classification of Hypotheses and Their Role in Natural Science

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (4):369-382 (2015)
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Abstract

In the introduction to his famous book, La Science et l’hypothèse, Poincaré remarks on the necessary role and legitimacy of hypotheses. He establishes a triple classification of hypotheses, dividing them into verifiable, useful, and apparent. However, in chapter 9, entitled ‘Les hypothèses en physique’, he gives a slightly different triadic classification: natural hypotheses, indifferent hypotheses, and real generalizations. The origin of this second classification is a lecture given at the International Congress of Physics, Paris, 1900. What are the similarities and differences between these two classifications? My main purpose is to provide a possible equivalence between the two classifications in order to clarify the role of hypotheses in Poincaré’s epistemology of natural science. The discussion will be based on the two fundamental texts mentioned above and on the contrast between Poincaré’s use of the notion of hypothesis and that of some of his contemporaries.

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María de Paz
Universidad de Sevilla

Citations of this work

The Methods Behind Poincaré’s Conventions: Structuralism and Hypothetical-Deductivism.María de Paz - 2023 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 54 (1):169-188.

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References found in this work

Critique of Pure Reason.I. Kant - 1787/1998 - Philosophy 59 (230):555-557.
La théorie physique: son objet et sa structure.P. Duhem - 1906 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 61:324-327.
La Science et l'Hypothèse.H. Poincaré - 1903 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 55:667-671.

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