On the true method of induction or investigative induction: Real but invisible

Abstract

Scientists apply Bacon’s investigative induction by first cataloguing experimental discrepancies among apparent natures of things. Induction begins by multiplying discrepancies, thus creating a puzzle with multiple clues. Solved puzzles thus give us power to produce those unusual, discrepant effects. Bacon’s experimental method, however, is not empiricist. Grasping things empirically, like receiving impressions on a wax tablet, presupposes that our senses cannot deceive us whenever we are deceived: we err in our interpretations. Empiricism thus leaves no objective discrepancies to resolve, as deception resides in our interpretation. Scientific induction, for all its success, becomes invisible to modern empiricist methodologists.

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Jagdish Hattiangadi
York University

Citations of this work

Emergence of complementarity and the Baconian roots of Niels Bohr's method.Slobodan Perovic - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 44 (3):162-173.

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