Jan G. Michel argues that we need a philosophy of scientific discovery. Before turning to the question of what such a philosophy might look like, he addresses two questions: Don’t we have a philosophy of scientific discovery yet? And do we need one at all? To answer the first question, he takes a closer look at history and finds that we have not had a systematic philosophy of scientific discovery worthy (...) of the name for over 150 years. To answer the second question, Michel puts forward three arguments that show the importance of a philosophy of scientific discovery. Briefly, he arrives at the following answers: No, we don’t yet have a philosophy of scientific discovery, and yes, we definitely need one. To remedy this shortcoming, Michel analyzes the concept of discovery, leading him to the insight that scientific discoveries have an underlying structure with certain structural features. Some of these features may be important but not indispensable to scientific discovery processes; these include eureka moments, serendipities, joint discoveries, special science funding, and others. In addition, Michel identifies three indispensable structural features which he examines in detail and which he places in a picture with a certain dynamics according to which the process of making scientific discoveries can be seen as a path, leading us from finding and acceptance to knowledge. (shrink)

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside The Open Society and Its Enemies as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...) view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science—the Humean problem of induction— concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories ? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories—thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. Without causation, there would be no scientific understanding, explanation, prediction, nor application in new technologies. How we discover causal connections is no easy matter, however. Causation often lies hiddenfrom view and it is vital that we adopt the right methods for uncovering it. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter. This (...) enquiry informs the correct norms for an empirical study of the world. In Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery, Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford propose nine new norms of scientific discovery. A number of existing methodological and philosophical orthodoxies are challenged as they argue that progress in science is being held back by an overlysimplistic philosophy of causation. (shrink)

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...) view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science--the Humean problem of induction--concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories--thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)

In this paper we will show Peirce’s distinction between deduction, induction and abduction. The aim of the paper is to show how Peirce changed his views on the subject, from an understanding of deduction, induction and hypotheses as types of reasoning to understanding them as stages of inquiry very tightly connected. In order to get a better understanding of Peirce’s originality on this, we show Peirce’s distinctions between qualitative and quantitative induction and between theorematical and corollarial deduction, passing then to (...) the distinction between mathematics and logic. In the end, we propose a sketch of a comparison between Peirce and Whitehead concerning the two thinkers’ view of mathematics, hoping that this could point to further inquiries. (shrink)

In his magnum opus, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (first published in German in 1934, English translation, 1959), Karl Popper make two fundamental philosophical moves. First, he relocates the center of gravity of the philosophical treatment of science around what he calls the problem of demarcation. This is the problem of distinguishing between science, on the one hand, and everything else on the other. (By contrast, his contemporaries of the Vienna Circle, whose positivism would prove the most influential (...) brand of empiricism of the day, located the center of gravity around the problem of linguistic meaning, and use a criterion according to which a statement is meaningful to the extent that one can identify verification conditions for it.) Popper excludes from science such things as logic, metaphysics, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Marx’s theory of history. Second, Popper propounds the doctrine of falsification, which handles the problem of demarcation, as well as answers David Hume’s shattering attack on science as the premier form of knowledge centuries before. The arguments he mounts for falsification would function also as an attack on any account of the scientific enterprise that, like positivism, adheres to the idea that science progresses logically from instances (given in observation or experience) to the high-order generalizations characteristic of mature scientific theory. In this small space I shall undertake neither to illuminate the nuances of Popper’s position, nor to trace the (numerous) lines of criticism that have accumulated against it some seventy years later. I shall busy myself instead with tracing a trajectory of thought on the subject of scientific reasoning and its relation to individual decision-making, reflecting on Popper’s contribution and on how his legacy might be further enlarged. (shrink)

In Part I (Philosophy of Science, Vol. 41 No.2, June, 1974) it was argued that in order to rebut Humean sceptical arguments, and thus show that it is possible for pure science to be rational, we need to reject standard empiricism and adopt in its stead aim oriented empiricism. Part II seeks to articulate in more detail a theory of rational scientific discovery within the general framework of aim oriented empiricism. It is argued that this theory (a) (...) exhibits pure science as a rational enterprise (b) enables us to resolve problems associated with the key notions of simplicity and intelligibility (c) has important implications both for philosophy of science and for scientific practice itself. (shrink)

The extent to which the scientific method has yielded to analysis in recent years serves only to emphasize by contrast the presence within that method of an irrational element. For it is becoming increasingly evident that whatever one may say of the logical and psychological character of the pre-inductive operations, of the formal processes involved in deducing the consequences of a given theory, of the technique of experimental corroboration, and of certain other aspects of the scientific method, there (...) is one phase of the movement which remains a surd. This is the act of the creative imagination through which hypotheses and theories are called into being. Its mysterious character is exhibited in the terminology which is employed in describing it, in the variety and inconstancy of the conditions which give rise to it, in the apparent impossibility of controlling it, and in the impossibility of recognizing completely the adequacy of its results when it does occur. It is variously described as an act of intuition, mystic revelation, divine insight, a flash of understanding; it arises out of the greatest variety of conditions: acute and prolonged attention to the data in the confinement of the laboratory, or the complete relaxation of a walk in the country, or the intense mental effort upon a problem in a wholly unrelated field; it forbids direction, in fact it seems to arise most readily when the element of effort and control is conspicuously absent; it cannot even be certainly identified, for many supposed acts of discovery prove later to have produced only groundless fancies and absurd creations of the unguided imagination. (shrink)

Historically, the problem of discovery or the problem of the genesis of scientific ideas has been taken seriously by the historians, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers who analyzed the creative thinking and formation of ideas and attempted to provide a meaningful account of them. In fact, the philosophical concern with scientific discovery is as old as science and philosophy of science themselves. However, almost throughout the first half of 20th century, philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of (...) scientific discovery remained in a state of suspended animation. This is because the dominant trend in philosophy of science in this period outlawed it. The dominant view in philosophy of science maintained that the phenomenon of scientific discovery is philosophically irrelevant, and an adequate philosophical understanding of science should confine itself to the way in which scientific theories are justified; it was assumed that the process of justification is a neat, spick-and-span phenomenon eminently suited to be described in terms which are, logically speaking, cut and dry. The process of justification or evaluation according to this orthodox view constitutes the essence of science. Obviously, justification was demarcated from discovery. Justification, because of its supposed epistemic transparency, became the exclusive focus of philosophical attention to the detriment of discovery. The invidious distinction between discovery of scientific ideas and justification of finished ideas of science remained the catchword for a long time. This paper is an attempt to critically examine the nihilistic attitude of the dominant philosophies of science and to arrive at a philosophical theory of scientific discovery. (shrink)

Scientific discovery is often regarded as romantic and creative - and hence unanalyzable - whereas the everyday process of verifying discoveries is sober and more suited to analysis. Yet this fascinating exploration of how scientific work proceeds argues that however sudden the moment of discovery may seem, the discovery process can be described and modeled. Using the methods and concepts of contemporary information-processing psychology (or cognitive science) the authors develop a series of artificial-intelligence programs that (...) can simulate the human thought processes used to discover scientific laws. The programs - BACON, DALTON, GLAUBER, and STAHL - are all largely data-driven, that is, when presented with series of chemical or physical measurements they search for uniformities and linking elements, generating and checking hypotheses and creating new concepts as they go along. "Scientific Discovery examines the nature of scientific research and reviews the arguments for and against a normative theory of discovery; describes the evolution of the BACON programs, which discover quantitative empirical laws and invent new concepts; presents programs that discover laws in qualitative and quantitative data; and ties the results together, suggesting how a combined and extended program might find research problems, invent new instruments, and invent appropriate problem representations. Numerous prominent historical examples of discoveries from physics and chemistry are used as tests for the programs and anchor the discussion concretely in the history of science. Pat Langley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.Herbert Simon is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science, and Philosophy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Gary L. Bradshaw is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Jan M. Zytkow is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Wichita State University. (shrink)

Mentalist view began to lose its standing among psychologists mainly during the first half of the twentieth century. As a result, the enthusiasm to build an objective science began to grow among behaviourists and ethologists. The rise of cognitive sciences around the 1960s, however, revived the debates over the importance of cognitive intervening variables in explaining behaviours that could not be explained by clinging solely to a pure behavioural approach. Nevertheless, even though cognitive functions in nonhuman animals have been identified (...) in many studies, attributing human mental properties to animals is still being criticized as anthropomorphism. Such anthropomorphic attributions have been considered as an open door to the return of subjective methodology. Representation of anthropomorphic attributions as scientific activities within the context of discovery as opposed to the context of justification casts a new light on this problem. The present analysis proposes that anthropomorphic attributions are formed based on top-down idiosyncratic intuitions on the cusp of hypothesis building, outside the context of scientific justification. In other words, an anthropomorphic attribution is a potential creative link between pure observations of behaviours and building testable hypotheses about cognition in the process of scientific discovery. Thus, serving a function within the context of discovery, anthropomorphism does not motivate the return of subjective methodology, simply because it is not inconsistent with the rule-governed path in the context of scientific justification. (shrink)

This paper examines the points of disagreement between Petrus Camper and J. W. von Goethe regarding the existence of the inter-maxillary bone in humans as the link between man and the rest of nature. This historical case illustrates the fundamental role of aesthetic judgements in scientific discovery. Thus, I shall show how the eighteenth century discovery of the inter-maxillary bone in humans was largely determined by aesthetic factors—specifically, those sets of assumptions and criteria implied in the aesthetic (...) schemata of Camper and Goethe. I argue that the relevance of scientifically ascertainable morphological properties that count as evidence for the existence of bona fide anatomical structures depend on the aesthetic schema adopted by the communities assessing the classification. At the same time, I propose and explain mechanisms by which aesthetic considerations might determine the acceptability of empirical claims about the world. Based on the reconstruction of the arguments of Camper and Goethe, I conclude that aesthetic considerations play a substantive role in both the generation and preliminary evaluation of scientific hypotheses. This paper suggests a complementary relation between the mediation of aesthetic criteria in theory choice and in scientific discovery in that while aesthetic considerations in theory choice lead to conservatism; in the context of discovery they often lead to innovation. (shrink)

This is a brief, personal retrospective on developments in the treatment of scientific discovery by philosophers, since about 1970.

The discovery of spectrum analysis occupies an important place on the long and thorny path of the advance of human knowledge toward the atoms, the stars, and the mastery of their laws. This great discovery was made one hundred years ago . The decisive role in this achievement belongs by right to two outstanding German scientists, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff. This discovery simultaneously opened the path into the atomic world, making it possible to judge the internal (...) structure of atoms from their optical properties, and into the world of heavenly bodies, the chemical composition of whose substances was first determined by means of spectrum analysis. All this led to an unprecedented expansion of the field of scientific knowledge both in the direction of the investigation of microscopic objects in nature and in that of the study of macro-objects. But the most remarkable thing was that in their development both these trends in research proved to be interrelated. The penetration of science into the field of the macro-cosmos was a direct consequence of its more profound penetration into the field of the micro-cosmos. In a word, this was one of the boldest of scientific achievements, one that enabled human reason to penetrate into the depths of the substance of the earth and the cosmos, to know its properties, its composition, and its laws. (shrink)

_Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery_. The_ Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is the third volume of the _Postscript_. It may be read independently, but it also forms part of Popper’s interconnected argument in the (...) _Postscript_. It presents Popper’s classic statement on quantum physics and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science and physics as a whole. (shrink)

Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery . The Postscript is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is the third volume of the Postscript . It may be read independently, but it also forms part of Popper’s interconnected (...) argument in the Postscript . It presents Popper’s classic statement on quantum physics and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science and physics as a whole. (shrink)

_Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery_. The_ Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is the third volume of the _Postscript_. It may be read independently, but it also forms part of Popper’s interconnected argument in the (...) _Postscript_. It presents Popper’s classic statement on quantum physics and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science and physics as a whole. (shrink)

_Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery_. The_ Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics is the third volume of the _Postscript_. It may be read independently, but it also forms part of Popper’s interconnected argument in the (...) _Postscript_. It presents Popper’s classic statement on quantum physics and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science and physics as a whole. (shrink)

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet (...) it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet (...) it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

_Realism and the Aim of Science_ is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s _Postscript_ to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The _Postscript_ is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ is the first volume of the _Postcript_. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet (...) it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. _Realism and the Aim of Science_ presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

Realism and the Aim of Science is one of the three volumes of Karl Popper’s Postscript to the Logic of scientific Discovery. The Postscript is the culmination of Popper’s work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science. Realism and the Aim of Science is the first volume of the Postcript . Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, (...) yet it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. Realism and the Aim of Science presents Popper’s mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science. (shrink)

Discoveries in natural science may be described concisely as a general procedure for finding the new in nature, in its phenomena, or in their essence.

This article is concerned with one of the notable but forgotten research strands that developed out of French nineteenth-century positivism, a strand that turned attention to the study of scientific discovery and was actively pursued by French epistemologists around the turn of the nineteenth century. I first sketch the context in which this research program emerged. I show that the program was a natural offshoot of French neopositivism; the latter was a current of twentieth-century thought that, even if (...) implicitly, challenged the positivism of first-generation positivists such as Comte. I then survey what French epistemologists—including Ernest Naville, Élie Rabier, Pierre Duhem, Édouard Le Roy, Abel Rey, André Lalande, Théodule-Armand Ribot, Edmond Goblot, and Jacques Picard, among others—had to say about the logic, psychology, and sociology of discovery. My story demonstrates the inaccuracy of existing historical accounts of the philosophical study of scientific discovery. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate Herbert Simon 's important computational approach to scientific discovery, which can be characterized as a contribution to both the "cognitive science of science" and to naturalized philosophy of science. First, I tackle the empirical adequacy of Simon 's account of discovery, arguing that his claims about the discovery process lack evidence and, even if substantiated, they disregard the important social dimension of scientific discovery. Second, I discuss the normative (...) dimension of Simon 's account, here I argue that Simon 's project is best understood as a contribution to "android epistemology." I conclude with some comments on the direction a naturalized yet normative philosophy of science might take. (shrink)

We review publications in automated scientific discovery using deep learning, with the aim of shedding light on problems with strong connections to philosophy of science, of physics in particular. We show that core issues of philosophy of science, related, notably, to the nature of scientific theories; the nature of unification; and of causation loom large in scientific deep learning. Therefore, advances in deep learning could, and ideally should, have impact on philosophy of science, (...) and vice versa. We suggest lines of further research, and highlight the role ‘theory-based’ AI could have in future developments of the field. (shrink)

Computational philosophy (CP) aims at investigating many important concepts and problems of the philosophical and epistemological tradition in a new way by taking advantage of information-theoretic, cognitive, and artificial intelligence methodologies. I maintain that the results of computational philosophy meet the classical requirements of some Peircian pragmatic ambitions. Indeed, more than a 100 years ago, the American philosopher C.S. Peirce, when working on logical and philosophical problems, suggested the concept of pragmatism(pragmaticism, in his own words) as a logical (...) criterion to analyze what words and concepts express through their practical meaning. Many words have been spent on creative processes and reasoning, especially in the case of scientific practices. In fact, many philosophers have usually offered a number of ways of construing hypotheses generation, but they aim at demonstrating that the activity of generating hypotheses is paradoxical, obscure, and thus not analyzable. Those descriptions are often so far from Peircian pragmatic prescription and so abstract to result completely unknowable and obscure. To dismiss this tendency and gain interesting insight about the so-called logic of scientific discovery we need to build constructive procedures, which could play a role in moving the problem-solving process forward by implementing them in some actual models. The computational turn gives us a new way to understand creative processes in a strictly pragmatic sense. In fact, by exploiting artificial intelligence and cognitive science tools, computational philosophy allows us to test concepts and ideas previously conceived only in abstract terms. It is in the perspective of these actual computational models that I find the central role of abduction in the explanation of creative reasoning in science. I maintain that the computational philosophy analysis of model-based and manipulative abduction and of external and epistemic mediators is important not only to delineate the actual practice of abduction, but also to further enhance the development of programs computationally adequate in rediscovering, or discovering for the first time, for example, scientific hypotheses or mathematical theorems. The last part of the paper is devoted to illustrating the problem of the extra-theoretical dimension of reasoning and discovery from the perspective of some mathematical cases derived from calculus and geometry. (shrink)

Modern science has undoubtedly become one the principal engines of economic growth, even though the epistemological status of scientific knowledge has been continuously contested. Leaving the philosophical problem of knowledge aside, this paper examines how scientific discovery contributes to the production of wealth. The analysis focuses on a recent achievement at the crossroads of chemistry, immunology and biotechnology: antibody catalysis. For this purpose, we develop a model of entrepreneurial work to explain how the discovery of natural (...) products and processes generates new economic opportunities. The proposed model is based on the assumption that scientists believe that the natural environment is a repository of 'natural capital'. Natural capital includes goods that are not made by humans but can be used to produce other goods and services. The belief in natural capital induces scientists to search for and identify a natural property that, in the specific cultural context of their work, is recognized as a valuable resource. The selection of such a property forms the initial phase of the discovery process. Certain research methods are then deployed to create novel empirical conditions within which the selected property is transformed into a specific good. The discovery of natural capital thus comprises a historically accountable entrepreneurial endeavour. (shrink)

Herbert Simon’s work on scientific discovery deserves serious attention by philosophers of science for several reasons. First, Simon was an early advocate of rational scientific discovery, contra Popper and logical empiricist philosophers of science (Simon 1966). This proposal spurred on investigation of scientific discovery in philosophy of science, as philosophers used and developed Simon’s notions of “problem solving” and “heuristics” in attempts to provide rational accounts of scientific discovery (See Nickles 1980a, (...) Wimsatt 1980). Second, Simon promoted and developed many of the crucial techniques and methods used in cognitive science. One is the use of computers to model internal psychological processes, a technique central to his account of scientific discovery. Another is protocol analysis, the use of the verbal reports of experimental subjects in psychology to construct accounts of their psychological processes. Protocol analysis is given a detailed formulation by Simon (Simon and Ericsson 1984), and is modified for use in the study of scientific cognition in the paper on Krebs (Kulkarni and Simon 1988). (shrink)

The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to reconstruct the evolution of our changing conceptions of time in the light of scientific discoveries. It will adopt a new perspective and organize the material around three central themes, which run through our history of time reckoning: cosmology and regularity; stasis and flux; symmetry and asymmetry. It is the physical criteria that humans choose – relativistic effects and time-symmetric equations or dynamic-kinematic effects and asymmetric conditions – that establish our views on (...) the nature of time. This book will defend a dynamic rather than a static view of time. (shrink)