The principles of science : $b a treatise on logic and scientific methodJevons, William Stanley
Philosophy
The principles of science : $b a treatise on logic and scientific method
Jevons, William Stanley
Logic; Science -- Methodology
It then remains to illustrate the sound use of hypothesis, to
distinguish between the portions of knowledge which we owe to empirical
observation, to accidental discovery, or to scientific prediction.
Interesting questions arise concerning the accordance of quantitative
theories and experiments, and I point out how the successive
verification of an hypothesis by distinct methods of experiment yields
conclusions approximating to but never attaining certainty. Additional
illustrations of the general procedure of inductive investigations are
given in a chapter on the Character of the Experimentalist, in which
I endeavour to show, moreover, that the inverse use of deduction was
really the logical method of such great masters of experimental inquiry
as Newton, Huyghens, and Faraday.
In treating Generalisation and Analogy, I consider the precautions
requisite in inferring from one case to another, or from one part of
the universe to another part; the validity of all such inferences
resting ultimately upon the inverse method of probabilities. The
treatment of Exceptional Phenomena appeared to afford an interesting
subject for a further chapter illustrating the various modes in which
an outstanding fact may eventually be explained. The formal part of
the book closes with the subject of Classification, which is, however,
very inadequately treated. I have, in fact, almost restricted myself to
showing that all classification is fundamentally carried out upon the
principles of Formal Logic and the Logical Alphabet described at the
outset.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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