The Heuristic Character of Traditional Scientific Methods

Abstract

The history of philosophy contains a number of attempts to formulate a procedure for generating theoretical knowledge, proofs, knowledge of causes, forms, essences, first principles and the like. These have been variously described and named as methods for inferring causes from effects, methods of analysis, induction, retroduction, and abduction. The methods described under these headings are often described in contrast to inferring from causes to effects, and methods of synthesis or deduction. The latter methods are plausibly understood as methods of applying established belief or principles in proving theorems or in explaining or predicting various occurrences, and philosophers, both recent and earlier, have viewed the latter methods as essentially deductive and philosophically unproblematic. However, the former methods are seldom sharply distinguished and seemingly several distinct procedures are designated by terms such as “analysis” and “induction”. They have also been generally regarded as philosophically problematic, but still the hope of discovering such methods has risen repeatedly in the history of philosophy. (See Oldroyd, 1984, for a useful summary account of both kinds of method.)