Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T05:23:27.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ontological Induction and the Logical Typology of Scientific Variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

William W. Rozeboom
William W. Rozeboom*
Affiliation:
Wesleyan University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is widely agreed among philosophers of science today that no formal pattern can possibly be found in the origins of scientific theory. There is no such thing as a “logic of discovery,” insists this view—a scientific hypothesis is susceptible to methodological critique only in its relation to empirical consequences derived after the hypothesis itself has emerged through a spontaneous creative inspiration. Yet confronted with the tautly directed thrust of theory-building as actually practiced at the cutting edge of scientific research, this romantic denial of method in the genesis of ideas takes on the appearance of myth.

It is the contention of this article that as empirical data ramify in logical complexity, they deposit a hard sediment of theory according to a standard inductive pattern so primitively compelling that it must be recognized as one of the primary forms of inferential thought. This process, here called “ontological induction,” is a distillation out of unwieldly observed regularities of more conceptually tractable states hypothesized to underlie them, and is the wellspring of our beliefs in theoretical entities. Previous failure to recognize this pattern of induction has undoubtedly been in substantial measure a result of inadequate attention to the structural details of scientific propositions; for in order to exhibit the nature of ontological induction clearly, it is first necessary to make extended forays through sparsely explored methodological terrain—notably, the nature of scientific “variables,” the logical form of “laws,” and the type-hierarchy of scientific concepts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , October 1961 , pp. 337 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] Bridgman, P. W. The Logic of Modern Physics. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927.Google Scholar
[2] Campbell, N. R. H. Physics: The Elements. New York: Dover, 1920.Google Scholar
[3] Carnap, R. The Logical Syntax of language. New York: Humanities Press, 1937.Google Scholar
[4] Carnap, R. “The methodological character of theoretical concepts,” in Feigl, H. & Scriven, M., eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. I, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956.Google Scholar
[5] Carnap, R. Introduction to Symbolic Logic and its Applications. New York: Dover, 1958.Google Scholar
[6] Feigl, H. Existential hypotheses. Philos. Sci., 1950, 17, 35–62.10.1086/287065CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Goodman, N. Fact, Fiction, & Forecast. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955.Google Scholar
[8] Hempel, C. “The theoretician's dilemma,” in Feigl, H., Scriven, M., & Maxwell, G., eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958.Google Scholar
[9] Luyten, W. J. White dwarfs and stellar evolution. Amer. Sci., 1960, 48, 30–39.Google Scholar
[10] Menger, K. On variables in mathematics and in natural science. Brit. J. Philos. Sci., 1954, 5, 134–142.10.1093/bjps/V.18.134CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11] Menger, K. Calculus: A modern Approach. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1955.Google Scholar
[12] Menger, K. Is w a function of u? Colloquium Mathematicum, 1958, 6, 41–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[13] Popper, K. R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1959.Google Scholar
[14] Reichenbach, H. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1947.Google Scholar
[15] Rozeboom, W. W. “What is learned?”—an empirical enigma. Psychol. Rev., 1958, 63, 22–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[16] Rozeboom, W. W. The logic of color words. Philos. Rev., 1958, 68, 353–366.10.2307/2182396CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[17] Rozeboom, W. W. Do stimuli elicit behavior ?—a study in the logical foundations of behavioristics. Philos. Sci., 1960, 27, 159–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[18] Rozeboom, W. W. “Formal analysis and the language of behavior theory,” in Feigl, H. & Maxwell, G., eds., Current Issues in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1961.Google Scholar
[19] Rozeboom, W. W. “The factual content of theoretical concepts,” in Feigl, H. & Maxwell, G., eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.Google Scholar
[20] Russell, B. Human Knowledge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1948.Google Scholar