Interesting Tidbit
Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:12 pm
I have been doing some reading and research and came across the following from “Philosophy of Natural Science” by Carl G. Hempel, published by Prentice-Hall in 1966.
Carl G. Hempel was born and educated in Germany, receiving his doctorate from the University of Berlin. His original training was in physics and mathematics
, but he eventually turned to philosophy, making contributions in logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. He has taught at Yale and Princeton Universities.
In this piece he will be quoting Professor Albert B. Wolfe of Ohio State who was known as a distinguished Institutional Economist and Demographer.
“The idea that in scientific inquiry, inductive inference from antecedently collected data lead to appropriate general principles is clearly embodied in the following account [by Wolfe] of how a scientist would ideally proceed.”
[“If we try to imagine how a mind of superhuman power and reach, but normal so far as the logical processes of its thought are concerned….would use the scientific method, the process would be as follows: First, all facts would be observed and recorded, without selection or a priori guess as to their relative importance. Secondly, the observed and recorded facts would be analyzed, compared, classified, without hypothesis or postulates other than those necessarily involved in the logic of thought. Third, from this analysis of the facts generalizations would be inductively drawn as to the relations, classificatory or causal, between them. Fourth, further research would be deductive as well as inductive, employing inferences from previously established generalizations.”]
Hempel goes on to say “This passage distinguishes four stages in an ideal scientific inquiry: (1) observation and recording of all facts, (2) analysis and classification of these facts, (3) inductive derivation of generalization from them, and (4) further testing of the generalizations. The first two of these stages are specifically assumed not to make use of any guesses or hypotheses as to how the observed facts might be interconnected; this restriction seems to have been imposed in the belief that such preconceived ideas would introduce a bias and would jeopardize the scientific objectivity of the investigation.”
Later Hempel makes the following statement. “The transition from data to theory requires creative imagination. Scientific hypotheses and theories are not derived from observed facts, but invented in order to account for them.”
I thought it was interesting and something to consider from a different point of view.
Carl G. Hempel was born and educated in Germany, receiving his doctorate from the University of Berlin. His original training was in physics and mathematics
, but he eventually turned to philosophy, making contributions in logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. He has taught at Yale and Princeton Universities.
In this piece he will be quoting Professor Albert B. Wolfe of Ohio State who was known as a distinguished Institutional Economist and Demographer.
“The idea that in scientific inquiry, inductive inference from antecedently collected data lead to appropriate general principles is clearly embodied in the following account [by Wolfe] of how a scientist would ideally proceed.”
[“If we try to imagine how a mind of superhuman power and reach, but normal so far as the logical processes of its thought are concerned….would use the scientific method, the process would be as follows: First, all facts would be observed and recorded, without selection or a priori guess as to their relative importance. Secondly, the observed and recorded facts would be analyzed, compared, classified, without hypothesis or postulates other than those necessarily involved in the logic of thought. Third, from this analysis of the facts generalizations would be inductively drawn as to the relations, classificatory or causal, between them. Fourth, further research would be deductive as well as inductive, employing inferences from previously established generalizations.”]
Hempel goes on to say “This passage distinguishes four stages in an ideal scientific inquiry: (1) observation and recording of all facts, (2) analysis and classification of these facts, (3) inductive derivation of generalization from them, and (4) further testing of the generalizations. The first two of these stages are specifically assumed not to make use of any guesses or hypotheses as to how the observed facts might be interconnected; this restriction seems to have been imposed in the belief that such preconceived ideas would introduce a bias and would jeopardize the scientific objectivity of the investigation.”
Later Hempel makes the following statement. “The transition from data to theory requires creative imagination. Scientific hypotheses and theories are not derived from observed facts, but invented in order to account for them.”
I thought it was interesting and something to consider from a different point of view.