Abstract
In its most general form, the thesis of this chapter can be succinctly put: we have brought to the writing of the history of methodology certain preconceptions which jointly render it almost impossible to understand the evolution of this subject. These preconceptions concern both the nature of philosophy and the aims of history. Until those conceptions are altered, I venture to claim, the history of methodology will not deserve the serious attention which it would otherwise warrant. I want to talk about this family of related philosophico-historical conceptions, using some specific examples to indicate the problem and to underscore its acuteness.
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Notes
For a guide to many of these studies, see my Theories of Scientific Method from Plato to Mach: A Bibliographic Review’, History of Science 7 (1968), 1–63.
Benjamin Martin,A Philosophical Grammar (London, 1748), p. 19. Similar sentiments are expressed a year later by Condillac; cf. his Oeuvres (Paris, 1798), vol. ii, pp. 327 ff.
T. Reid, Works (ed. W. Hamilton, 6th ed., Edinburgh, 1863), vol. 1, p. 236. For further discussion of this background, see Chapter 7.
Most contentious in Hartley’s system was his effort to provide a neuro-physiological foundation for the Lockean `associationist’ psychology by postulating an aetherial fluid which filled the nerves.
From Boscovich’s De Solis a Lunae Defectibus (1760). Quoted from, and translated by D. Stewart in his Collected Works (ed. by W. Hamilton, Edinburgh, 1854–60), vol. 2, p. 212.
See, especially, Hartley’s Observations on Man: His Frame, His Duty and His Expectations (London, 1749 ), vol. 1, pp. 341–51.
For a discussion of LeSage’s physics, see S. Aronson, The Gravitational Theory of George-Louis LeSage, The Natural Philosopher 3 (1964) 51–74; for a brief discussion of that theory’s philosophical significance, see Chapter 6 below.
From a letter published in Notice de la Vie et des Ecrits de George-Louis LeSage (ed. P. Prevost, Génève, 1805), p. 390.
Ibid., p. 300.
Ibid., p, 265.
Ibid., p. 464–65.
This quotation is from LeSage’s Premier Mémoire sur la Méthode d’Hypothèse, published posthumously in P. Prevost’s Essais de Philosophie (Paris, 1804), vol. 2, para. 23.
See his L ‘Art d’Observer (2 vols. Geneve, 1775), expanded to the three-volume Essai sur l’Art d’Observer et de Faire des Expériences (Génève, 1802). Senebier, incidentally, was LeSage’s immediate successor as Director of the Geneva Library.
See P. Prevost, op. cit., note 12.
D. Stewart, op. cit., note 5, vol. II, p. 301. (Cf. also ibid., pp. 307–308.)
See Richard Olson’s interesting study, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750–1880 (Princeton, 1975).
Cf. Mill’s chapter on hypotheses in the System of Logic.
See J. Mittelstrass, Die Rettung der Phänomene (Berlin, 1962 ).
See M. Mandelbaum, Philosophy, Science and Sense Perception (Baltimore, 1964 ).
See A. I. Sabra, Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton (London, 1967); and G. Buchdahl’s numerous studies of Descartes.
For a brief discussion of this issue, see Chapter 13 below.
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Laudan, L. (1981). The Sources of Modern Methodology: Two Models of Change. In: Science and Hypothesis. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7288-0_2
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