1. Overview and organizing themes 2. Historical Review: Aristotle to Mill 3. Logic of method and critical responses 3.1 Logical constructionism and Operationalism 3.2. H-D as a logic of confirmation 3.3. Popper and falsificationism 3.4 Meta-methodology and the end of method 4. Statistical methods for hypothesis testing 5. Method in Practice 5.1 Creative and exploratory practices 5.2 Computer methods and the ‘third way’ of doing science 6. Discourse on scientific method 6.1 “The scientific (...) class='Hi'>method” in science education and as seen by scientists 6.2 Privileged methods and ‘gold standards’ 6.3 Scientific method in the court room 6.4 Deviating practices 7. Conclusion Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries . (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: (1) learning about the universe, and about ourselves as a part of the universe, and (2) learning how to make progress towards as good a world as possible. We solved the first problem when we created modern science in the 17th century, but we have not yet solved the second problem. This puts us in a situation of unprecedented danger. Modern science and technology enormously increase our power to act, but not our power (...) to act wisely. All our current global crises have arisen as a result. What we need to do is learn from our solution to the first great problem of learning how to go about solving the second one. Properly implemented, this idea leads to a new kind of inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

The central theme running throughout this outstanding new survey is the nature of the philosophical debate created by modern science's foundation in experimental and mathematical method. More recently, recognition that reasoning in science is probabilistic generated intense debate about whether and how it should be constrained so as to ensure the practical certainty of the conclusions drawn. These debates brought to light issues of a philosophical nature which form the core of many scientific controversies today. _Scientific Method: (...) A Historical and Philosophical Introduction_ presents these debates through clear and comparative discussion of key figures in the history of science. Key chapters critically discuss * Galileo's demonstrative method, Bacon's inductive method, and Newton's rules of reasoning * the rise of probabilistic `Bayesian' methods in the eighteenth century * the method of hypotheses through the work of Herschel, Mill and Whewell * the conventionalist views of Poincaré and Duhem * the inductivism of Peirce, Russell and Keynes * Popper's falsification compared with Reichenbach's enumerative induction * Carnap's scientific method as Bayesian reasoning The debates are brought up to date in the final chapters by considering the ways in which ideas about method in the physical and biological sciences have affected thinking about method in the social sciences. This debate is analyzed through the ideas of key theorists such as Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend. (shrink)

This is an introductory overview of theories of scientific method.

. — The scientific method can be understood as a sequence of stages of types of activity undertaken to construct explanatory hypotheses which are verifiable. These stages, origination, deduction, experimentation, and confirmation, are each subdivided into several phases. The stages and phases are related by an order of precedence in which any given phase has to be preceded by the one before it but does not necessarily lead to the one after it. Such a dynamic outline of the (...) growth of a scientific idea is a general scheme for rendering an explanation of it. As a consequence, the general historical development of a scientific idea is traced at the same time that its logical structure and operational significance is indicated. (shrink)

The general principles of the scientific method, which are applicable across all of the sciences, are essential for perspective, productivity, and innovation. These principles include deductive and inductive logic, probability, parsimony, and hypothesis testing, as well as science's presuppositions, limitations, ethics, and bold claims of rationality and truth. The implicit contrast is with specialized techniques confined to a given discipline, such as DNA sequencing in biology. Neither general principles nor specialized techniques can substitute for one another, but rather (...) the winning combination for scientists is mastery of both. The purposes of this book are to enhance perspective on science by drawing insights from the humanities, and to increase productivity by fostering a deep understanding of the general principles of scientific method. The examples and case studies span the physical, biological, and social sciences; include applications in agriculture, engineering, and medicine; and also explore science's interrelationships with disciplines in the humanities such as philosophy and law. This book engages a great diversity of viewpoints on science, both historical and contemporary, and responds by affirming science's rationality. Informed by position papers on science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, and National Science Foundation, this book aligns with a distinctively mainstream vision of science. It is an ideal resource for anyone undertaking a systematic study of scientific method for the first time, from undergraduates to professionals in both the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

The central theme running throughout this outstanding new survey is the nature of the philosophical debate created by modern science's foundation in experimental and mathematical method. More recently, recognition that reasoning in science is probabilistic generated intense debate about whether and how it should be constrained so as to ensure the practical certainty of the conclusions drawn. These debates brought to light issues of a philosophical nature which form the core of many scientific controversies today. _Scientific Method: (...) A Historical and Philosophical Introduction_ presents these debates through clear and comparative discussion of key figures in the history of science. Key chapters critically discuss * Galileo's demonstrative method, Bacon's inductive method, and Newton's rules of reasoning * the rise of probabilistic `Bayesian' methods in the eighteenth century * the method of hypotheses through the work of Herschel, Mill and Whewell * the conventionalist views of Poincaré and Duhem * the inductivism of Peirce, Russell and Keynes * Popper's falsification compared with Reichenbach's enumerative induction * Carnap's scientific method as Bayesian reasoning The debates are brought up to date in the final chapters by considering the ways in which ideas about method in the physical and biological sciences have affected thinking about method in the social sciences. This debate is analyzed through the ideas of key theorists such as Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend. (shrink)

The idea of a single scientific method, shared across specialties and teachable to ten-year-olds, is just over a hundred years old. For centuries prior, science had meant a kind of knowledge, made from facts gathered through direct observation or deduced from first principles. But during the nineteenth century, science came to mean something else: a way of thinking. The Scientific Method tells the story of how this approach took hold in laboratories, the field, and eventually classrooms, (...) where science was once taught as a natural process. Henry M. Cowles reveals the intertwined histories of evolution and experiment, from Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to John Dewey's vision for science education. Darwin portrayed nature as akin to a man of science, experimenting through evolution, while his followers turned his theory onto the mind itself. Psychologists reimagined the scientific method as a problem-solving adaptation, a basic feature of cognition that had helped humans prosper. This was how Dewey and other educators taught science at the turn of the twentieth century-but their organic account was not to last. Soon, the scientific method was reimagined as a means of controlling nature, not a product of it. By shedding its roots in evolutionary theory, the scientific method came to seem far less natural, but far more powerful. This book reveals the origin of a fundamental modern concept. Once seen as a natural adaptation, the method soon became a symbol of science's power over nature, a power that, until recently, has rarely been called into question. (shrink)

There is a short answer to the question, whether scientific method can be applied to the study of the social relations of men, or, whether social sciences are possible; it is that these sciences exist and are in fact among the most ancient. Their success has perhaps been less startling than that of the physical sciences and they have perhaps been pursued with less enthusiasm. But there are reasons for this inherent in the nature of the social sciences, (...) as I shall try to show. (shrink)

String theory has played a highly influential role in theoretical physics for nearly three decades and has substantially altered our view of the elementary building principles of the Universe. However, the theory remains empirically unconfirmed, and is expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. So why do string theorists have such a strong belief in their theory? This book explores this question, offering a novel insight into the nature of theory assessment itself. Dawid approaches the topic from a unique (...) position, having extensive experience in both philosophy and high-energy physics. He argues that string theory is just the most conspicuous example of a number of theories in high-energy physics where non-empirical theory assessment has an important part to play. Aimed at physicists and philosophers of science, the book does not use mathematical formalism and explains most technical terms. (shrink)

This book looks at how science investigates the natural world around us. It is an examination of the scientific method, the foundation of science and basis on which our scientific knowledge is built.... [It] addresses all concepts pertaining to the scientific method. It includes discussions on objective reality, hypotheses and theory, and the fundamental and unalienable role of experimental evidence in scientific knowledge.... Di Ventra also examines the limits of science and the errors we (...) make when abusing its method in nonscientific contexts. By reflecting on the general method, the reader can critically sort through other types of scientific claims, and judge their ability to apply it in study and in practice. (shrink)

The science called 'harmonics' was one of the major intellectual enterprises of Greek antiquity. Ptolemy's treatise seeks to invest it with new scientific rigour; its consistently sophisticated procedural self-awareness marks it as a key text in the history of science. This book is a sustained methodological exploration of Ptolemy's project. After an analysis of his explicit pronouncements on the science's aims and the methods appropriate to it, it examines Ptolemy's conduct of his investigation in detail, concluding that despite occasional (...) uncertainties, the declared procedure is followed with remarkable fidelity. Ptolemy pursues tenaciously his novel objective of integrating closely the project's theoretical and empirical phases and shows astonishing mastery of the concept, the design and the conduct of controlled experimental tests. By opening up this neglected text to historians of science, the book aims to provide a point of departure for wider studies of Greek scientific method. (shrink)

Isaac Newton's Scientific Method examines Newton's argument for universal gravity and his application of it to resolve the problem of deciding between geocentric and heliocentric world systems by measuring masses of the sun and planets. William L. Harper suggests that Newton's inferences from phenomena realize an ideal of empirical success that is richer than prediction. Any theory that can achieve this rich sort of empirical success must not only be able to predict the phenomena it purports to explain, (...) but also have those phenomena accurately measure the parameters which explain them. Harper explores the ways in which Newton's method aims to turn theoretical questions into ones which can be answered empirically by measurement from phenomena, and to establish that propositions inferred from phenomena are provisionally accepted as guides to further research. This methodology, guided by its rich ideal of empirical success, supports a conception of scientific progress that does not require construing it as progress toward Laplace's ideal limit of a final theory of everything, and is not threatened by the classic argument against convergent realism. Newton's method endorses the radical theoretical transformation from his theory to Einstein's. Harper argues that it is strikingly realized in the development and application of testing frameworks for relativistic theories of gravity, and very much at work in cosmology today. (shrink)

The nature of the scientific method has been a main concern of philosophy from Plato to Mill. In that period logic has been considered to be a part of the methodology of science. Since Mill, however, the situation has completely changed. Logic has ceased to be a part of the methodology of science, and no Discourse on method has been written. Both logic and the methodology of science have stopped dealing with the process of discovery, and generally (...) with the actual process of scientific research. As a result, several first-rate scientists, from Feynman and Weinberg to Dyson and Hawkins, have concluded that philosophy has become useless and totally irrelevant to science. The aim of this paper is to give some indications as to how to develop a logic concerned with the process of discovery and a methodology of science dealing with the actual process of scientific research. (shrink)

A methodology of science must satisfy two requirements: (i) It must be ampliative: the theories which it generates must make statements that go far beyond any data or observations that may have motivated those theories in the first place. (ii) It must be epistemically probative: it must somehow provide a warrant for believing that the theories so produced are correct, or at least partially correct, even if they can never be fully confirmed. These two requirements pull in opposite directions, and (...) attempts to specify the “scientific method” often focus on one to the exclusion of the other. On a few points there now exists something approaching a consensus. (i) Scientific hypotheses — including, particularly, statements about unobserved or unobservable entities or mechanisms — remain conjectural, no matter how frequently predictions based on those hypotheses are found to coincide with data. (ii) A good (best?) indicator of a theory’s verisimilitude is its ability to successfully predict phenomena which it was not specifically designed to predict. I discuss these ideas with particular reference to cosmological theories. (shrink)

This volume explores how the scientific method enters and determines the dominant methodologies of various modern academic disciplines. It highlights the ways in which practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds -- the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences -- engage with the scientific method in their own disciplines. The book maps the discourse (within each of the disciplines) that critiques the scientific method, from different social locations, in order to argue for more complex (...) and nuanced approaches in methodology. It also investigates the connections between the method and the structures of power and domination which exist within these disciplines. In the process, it offers a new way of thinking about the philosophy of the scientific method. Part of the Science and Technology Studies series, this volume is the first of its kind in the South Asian context to debate scientific methods and address questions by scholars based in the global south. It will be useful to students of science, humanities, social sciences, philosophy of science, and philosophy of social science. Research scholars from these disciplines, especially those engaging in interdisciplinary research, will also benefit from this volume. (shrink)

We are told that we live in a scientific world. All about us are the fruits of scientific research, and the products of scientific industry. But, in spite of this transformation of our material surroundings, scientific thought, or the scientific method as such, has had no effect upon the everyday thought and behaviour of our people. To be sure, along with the scientific gadgets a few scientific truths have been disseminated. They know (...) the earth is round and moves about the sun; they could know that bacteria cause disease and that they are themselves descended from less articulate forms of animal life. Even when such conclusions are accepted, it is on the basis of authority with no understanding as to how they arose and on what basis they stand. For the large majority, science has merely acquired a cloak of respectability; it is a stronger magic than that of our forebears, and our modern alchemy is known as a powerful though mysterious source of pecuniary profit. (shrink)

There remains only the obligation to thank those who have helped me with specific suggestions and the editors who have kindly granted permission to reprint material which first appeared in the pages of their journals. To the former group belong Alan B. Brinkley and Max O. Hocutt Portion of chap ters I and VI were published in Philosophy of Science; of chapters IV and V in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine; of chapter VIII in Dialectica; of chapter IX in The (...) British lournal for the Philosophy of Science; and of chapter XIII in Synthese. J.K.F. New Orleans, 1971 PREFACE In this book I have tried to describe the scientific method, understood as the hypothetico-experimental technique of investigation which has been prac ticed so successfully in the physical sciences. It is the first volume of a three-volume work on the philosophy of science, each of which, however, is complete and independent. A second volume will contain an account of the domain in which the method operates and a history of empiricism. A third volume will be devoted to the philosophy of science proper: the metaphysics and epistemology presupposed by the method, its logical structure, and the ethical implications of its results. (shrink)

Excerpt from Psychoanalysis, Scientific Method and Philosophy: A Symposium The Relevance of Psychoanalysis to Philosophy by morris lazerowitz, Smith College Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in (...) the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

If there is an essential difference as suggested in a preceding article, between the natural sciences on the one hand and the social studies on the other, in the sense that man has the power to change, and has repeatedly changed, existing social organizations, whereas he has no such power over natural phenomena, the meaning of social science must in this respect at least differ substantially from that of natural science. Elsewhere the present writer has designated society an “artificial creation,” (...) much as the automobile or a steel mill is, i.e. made by the artifice of man. The artificial automobile or steel mill is of course fabricated in the light of the natural laws of physical science. Its construction would be impossible without a knowledge of these laws. There are also certain natural laws and tendencies in human nature and animal behavior which must serve as a foundation for any scientifically fabricated society, i.e. constructed on the basis of observation and verification of these tendencies on the one hand and a rigorous use of theory and analysis on the other. In short, despite any essential difference, as suggested, between natural and social science, the scientific method is apparently just as applicable in the one field as in the other. There is still much confusion on this score. But before pursuing further the significance of the distinction, artificial versus natural, it will be well to have before us more of what opposing schools of methodological thought in the social studies have to offer. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Method examines the remarkable advances made in the field of AI over the past twenty years, discussing their profound implications for philosophy. Taking a clear, non-technical approach, Donald Gillies shows how current views on scientific method are challenged by this recent research, and suggests a new framework for the study of logic. Finally, he draws on work by such seminal thinkers as Bacon, Gdel, Popper, Penrose, and Lucas, to address the hotly-contested question (...) of whether computers might become intellectually superior to human beings. (shrink)

Seven essays explore issues of scientific methodology in various episodes of science from Newtonian physics of the 17th and 18th century to quantum mechanics in the 20th. Addressed to scholars of the history and philosophy of science, but also accessible to general readers. Annotation copyright Book.

We argue in this article that Marx’s scientific method coupled with his analysis of the phenomenological consciousness of agents trapped within the capitalist mode of production provides a sufficient solution to the transformation problem. That is, Marx needs no amending – mathematical, philosophical, or otherwise – and the tools he uses to demonstrate and resolve the problem – science and phenomenology – were already clearly spelled out in his texts. Critics of Marx either fail to understand his (...) class='Hi'>scientific method, or are themselves trapped within a non-scientific capitalist phenomenology. Similarly, Marxists that mathematically resolve the transformation problem fail to realise that Marx’s scientific analysis alone demonstrates that a mathematical solution to the transformation problem is a misapprehension of the relation between Marx’s abstract theory and concrete phenomena. Consequently, we also criticise the monetary theorists who try to dismiss the problem as pointless by claiming that Marx was not a pre-monetary theorist. (shrink)

Isaac Newton's Scientific Method examines Newton's argument for universal gravity and his application of it to resolve the problem of deciding between geocentric and heliocentric world systems by measuring masses of the sun and planets. William L. Harper suggests that Newton's inferences from phenomena realize an ideal of empirical success that is richer than prediction. Any theory that can achieve this rich sort of empirical success must not only be able to predict the phenomena it purports to explain, (...) but also have those phenomena accurately measure the parameters which explain them. Harper explores the ways in which Newton's method aims to turn theoretical questions into ones which can be answered empirically, by measurement from phenomena, and to establish that propositions inferred from phenomena are provisionally accepted as guides to further research. This methodology, guided by its rich ideal of empirical success, supports a conception of scientific progress that does not require construing it as progress toward Laplace's ideal limit of a final theory of everything, and is not threatened by the classic argument against convergent realism. Newton's method endorses the radical theoretical transformation from his theory to Einstein's. Harper argues that it is strikingly realized in the development and application of testing frameworks for relativistic theories of gravity, and very much at work in cosmology today. (shrink)

By focusing on the nineteenth-century debate between William Whewell and Augustus De Morgan on the nature and scope of scientific method and induction, this article captures an important episode in the history of Baconianism. More specifically, it sheds new light on the social and intellectual construction of Francis Bacon as an emblem of modern science and on British Baconianism as part of the creation of a vision of the modern enterprise. A critic of Whewell’s renovated Baconianism and an (...) advocate of an alternative anti-Baconian (or pro-Newtonian) view of science, De Morgan is presented for the first time as a philosopher of science (or metascientist), one who pioneered the application of probability theory to scientific reasoning. (shrink)

This article explores the main aspects of Aristotle’s scientific method in Meteorology IV. Dispositional properties such as solidifiability or combustibility play a dominant role in Meteor. IV (a) in virtue of their central place in the generic division of homoeomers, based on successive differentiation and multiple differentiae, and (b) in virtue of their role in revealing otherwise undetectable characteristics of uniform materials (composition and physical structure). While Aristotle often starts with accounts of ingredients and their ratio (e.g., solids (...) that contain a significant amount of water are liquefiable), the natural direction of his investigation is from observations regarding dispositional properties and their manifestation to accounts of composition and microstructure. Such passages tend to be easily syllogizable, a feature that—along with the criteria that shape his method of division—argues, I believe, for the compatibility of Meteor. IV with Aristotle’s theory of scientific inquiry. The concluding sections of my article deal more succinctly with reputable opinions and final causation in Meteor. IV.1–11 and with the relation between this treatise and Aristotle’s biological corpus. (shrink)

Traditional attempts to delineate the distinctive rationality of modern science have taken it for granted that the purpose of empirical research is to test judgments. The choice of concepts to use in those judgments is therefore seen either a matter of indifference (Popper) or as important choice which must be made, so to speak, in advance of all empirical research (Carnap). I argue that scientific method aims precisely at empirical testing of concepts, and that even the simplest (...) class='Hi'>scientific ex- periment or observation results in conceptual change. (shrink)

Progress in the last few decades in what is widely known as “Chaos Theory” has plainly advanced understanding in the several sciences it has been applied to. But the manner in which such progress has been achieved raises important questions about scientific method and, indeed, about the very objectives and character of science. In this presentation, I hope to engage my audience in a discussion of several of these important new topics.

What is it to be scientific? Is there such a thing as scientific method? And if so, how might such methods be justified? Robert Nola and Howard Sankey seek to provide answers to these fundamental questions in their exploration of the major recent theories of scientific method. Although for many scientists their understanding of method is something they just pick up in the course of being trained, Nola and Sankey argue that it is possible (...) to be explicit about what this tacit understanding of method is, rather than leave it as some unfathomable mystery. They robustly defend the idea that there is such a thing as scientific method and show how this might be legitimated. This book begins with the question of what methodology might mean and explores the notions of values, rules and principles, before investigating how methodologists have sought to show that our scientific methods are rational. Part 2 of this book sets out some principles of inductive method and examines its alternatives including abduction, IBE, and hypothetico-deductivism. Part 3 introduces probabilistic modes of reasoning, particularly Bayesianism in its various guises, and shows how it is able to give an account of many of the values and rules of method. Part 4 considers the ideas of philosophers who have proposed distinctive theories of method such as Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend and Part 5 continues this theme by considering philosophers who have proposed naturalised theories of method such as Quine, Laudan and Rescher. This book offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the idea of scientific method and a wide-ranging discussion of how historians of science, philosophers of science and scientists have grappled with the question over the last fifty years. (shrink)

Computational methods such as computer simulations, Monte Carlo methods, and agent-based modeling have become the dominant techniques in many areas of science. Extending Ourselves contains the first systematic philosophical account of these new methods, and how they require a different approach to scientific method. Paul Humphreys draws a parallel between the ways in which such computational methods have enhanced our abilities to mathematically model the world, and the more familiar ways in which scientific instruments have expanded our (...) access to the empirical world. This expansion forms the basis for a new kind of empiricism, better suited to the needs of science than the older anthropocentric forms of empiricism. Human abilities are no longer the ultimate standard of epistemological correctness.Humphreys also includes arguments for the primacy of properties rather than objects, the need to consider technological constraints when appraising scientific methods, and a detailed account of how the path from computational template to scientific application is constructed. This last feature allows us to hold a form of selective realism in which anti-realist arguments based on formal reconstructions of theories can be avoided. One important consequence of the rise of computational methods is that the traditional organization of the sciences is being replaced by an organization founded on computational templates.Extending Ourselves will be of interest to philosophers of science, epistemologists, and to anyone interested in the role played by computers in modern science. (shrink)

The paper firstly reconstructs Mario Calderoni’s criticism of the Jamesian version of pragmatism, which corresponds to his philosophical choice in favor of the ethical value assigned by Peirce to the scientific-experimental method. In this light, I propose a reading of some Calderoni’s arguments concerning the link between the construction of beliefs, practical norms and moral or legal responsibility, trying to reassess his criticisms of James and then his conception of philosophy as a practical and therapeutic activity. The latter (...) will be discussed considering Wittgenstein’s analysis of intentional verbs and Calderoni’s approach to the issues of freedom, of the definition of voluntary acts as well as of individual responsibility, both moral and legal. In particular, I will focus on the paradigm shift suggested by Wittgenstein with regard to the problem of human will, which seems useful for enhancing Calderoni’s pragmatist insights. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years Paul Feyerabend has developed an extremely distinctive and influentical approach to problems in the philosophy of science. The most important and seminal of his published essays are collected here in two volumes, with new introductions to provide an overview and historical perspective on the discussions of each part. Volume 1 presents papers on the interpretation of scientific theories, together with papers applying the views developed to particular problems in philosophy and physics. The essays in (...) volume 2 examine the origin and history of an abstract rationalism, as well as its consequences for the philosophy of science and methods of scientific research. Professor Feyerabend argues with great force and imagination for a comprehensive and opportunistic pluralism. In doing so he draws on extensive knowledge of scientific history and practice, and he is alert always to the wider philosophical, practical and political implications of conflicting views. These two volumes fully display the variety of his ideas, and confirm the originality and significance of his work. (shrink)

Psychological investigations are supposed to deal with the behavior of animals, including of course, the human being. They are supposed to deal with the broad, general problem of how and why we behave the way we do.Most psychologists however, are still dealing with their particular science from the strictly biological point of view, and overlooking by and large, the ever gradual development of psychology into a social rather than biological science. Nevertheless, important methodological contributions are being made. These contributions show (...) a progressive awareness of the societal influences to which Psychology is particularly susceptible. The problems dealt with and the way in which they are handled, reflect conditions in the everyday world. Even the experimenter in an ivory laboratory but reflects the current and wholly erroneous viewpoint fostered by interested groups, that science must be impartial and oblivious to human suffering and human welfare. (shrink)

I defend three main conclusions. First, whether a method is public is important, because non-public methods are scientifically illegitimate. Second, there are substantive prescriptive differences between the view that private methods are legitimate and the view that private methods are illegitimate. Third, Descriptive Experience Sam-pling is a public method.

This is a survey of theories of scientific method which opens the book "After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method".