INDUCTIVE METHOD AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

This essay intends to argue that induction is the method of scientific discovery and that the current objections against the inductive method are not correct. To this purpose I shall first specify the various meanings of ‘method’ and I shall use these meanings as an Ariadne’s thread in order to draw a map of the problems of methodology and a model of inductive procedure (Section I). Then I shall go on to show that the main arguments against induction put forward by modern hypothetico-deductivists and by Popper are fallacious (Sections II–III). Lastly, after rejecting the view of those who maintain that a distinction should be made between discovery (by induction) of laws and discovery (via hypotheses) of theories (Section IV), I shall try to prove my thesis by showing that the act of conceiving or inventing a hypothesis is an inductive inference from observational premises (Section V). I shall outline also the advantages of such a view with respect to the hypothetico-deductivist (or ‘trial and error’ or ‘conjectures and refutations’) approach.

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