2 - Testing Scientific Theories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Christian Huygens gave this account of the scientific method in the introduction to his Treatise on Light (1690):
… whereas the geometers prove their propositions by fixed and incontestable principles, here the principles are verified by the conclusions to be drawn from them; the nature of these things not allowing of this being done otherwise. It is always possible thereby to attain a degree of probability which very often is scarcely less than complete proof. To wit, when things which have been demonstrated by the principles that have been assumed correspond perfectly to the phenomena which experiment has brought under observation; especially when there are a great number of them, and further, principally, when one can imagine and foresee new phenomena which ought to follow from the hypotheses which one employs, and when one finds that therein the fact corresponds to our prevision. But if all these proofs of probability are met with in that which I propose to discuss, as it seems to me they are, this ought to be a very strong confirmation of the success of my inquiry; and it must be ill if the facts are not pretty much as I represent them.
In this chapter we interpret Huygens's methodology and extend it to the treatment of certain vexed methodological questions–especially, the Duhem-Quine problem (“holism”, sec. 2.6) and the problem of old evidence (sec. 2.7).
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- Subjective ProbabilityThe Real Thing, pp. 29 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004