Abstract
Discovery, we are often told, is a nonrational affair. Some who speak this way follow Hans Reichenbach in distinguishing the context of discovery from that of justification. In the former, the idea of a new hypothesis first occurs to the scientist. In the latter, the scientist attempts to test an hypothesis that has already occurred to him. The context of justification is, or is supposed to be, teeming with rationality. Not the context of discovery. Instead of being characterized as a context in which logical inferences occur, we are told that it is one permeated with inspiration, hunch, and conjecture. These may have causes deep in the human psyche, but they are not logical inferences of the sort philosophers and logicians can study.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Achinstein, Peter: 1971, Law and Explanation, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.
Bohr, Niels: 1913, ‘On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules’, reprinted in Henry A. Boorse and Lloyd Motz (eds.), The World of the Atom, New York, 1966.
Carnap, Rudolf: 1950, Logical Foundation of Probability, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago (2nd ed., 1962 ).
Copi, Irving: 1978, Introduction to Logic, MacMillan, New York, 5th ed.
Cotes, Roger: 1713, Preface to the Second Edition of Newton’s Principia, in Isaac Newton, Principia, Vol. 1, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1934.
Galileo: 1610, ‘The Starry Messenger’, reprinted in Stillman Drake (ed.), Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Anchor, New York, 1957.
Hanson, N. R.: 1958, Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.
Harman, Gilbert: 1965, ‘The Inference to the Best Explanation’, Philosophical Review 64, 88–95.
Heilbron, John, Thomas Kuhn: 1969, ‘The Genesis of the Bohr Atom’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 1, 211–290.
Hempel, Carl G.: 1966, Philosophy of Natural Science, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Jammer, Max: 1966, Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Peirce, Charles S.: 1931 et seq, Collected Papers, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.), Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge.
Popper, Karl: 1961, Logic of Scientific Discovery, Basic Books, New York.
Reichenbach, Hans: 1938, Experience and Prediction, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Salmon, Wesley: 1971, Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.
Schilpp, P. A. (ed.): 1963, The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, Open Court Pub. Co., LaSalle, Illinois.
Shapere, Dudley: 1974, ‘Scientific Theories and Their Domains’, in F. Suppe (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories, Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1980 D. Reidel Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Achinstein, P. (1980). Discovery and Rule-Books. In: Nickles, T. (eds) Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8986-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8986-3_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1070-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-8986-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive