inductivism
Sign in to saveInductivism is the traditional and still commonplace philosophy of scientific method to develop scientific theories. Inductivism aims to neutrally observe a domain, infer laws from examined cases—hence, inductive reasoning—and thus objectively discover the sole naturally true theory of the observed.
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Article
37 sectionsContents
- Philosophers' debates
- Inductivist endorsement
- Inductivist repudiation
- Scientific methods
- Inductivism
- Confirmation
- Disconfirmation
- Determination
- Deductivism
- Inductivist reign
- Bacon
- Newton
- Hume
- Kant
- Positivism
- Comte
- Mill
- Social
- Logical
- Opposition
- Problems
- Early criticism
- Whewell
- Peirce
- Inductivist fall
- Fuzziness
- Revolutions
- Falsificationism
- Postpositivism
- Problem of induction
- Logical bogeymen
- Scientific anarchy
- Research programmes
- Research traditions
- Inductivist heir
- Notes
- References
Inductivism is the traditional and still commonplace philosophy of scientific method to develop scientific theories. Inductivism aims to neutrally observe a domain, infer laws from examined cases—hence, inductive reasoning—and thus objectively discover the sole naturally true theory of the observed.
Inductivism's basis is, in sum, "the idea that theories can be derived from, or established on the basis of, facts". Evolving in phases, inductivism's conceptual reign spanned four centuries and began with Francis Bacon's 1620 proposal in his Novum Organum, itself a reply to the pre-scientific scholastic model of inquiry which prioritized deductive reasoning from sources of belief taken to be authoritative such as religious texts.