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Reasoning from Phenomena: Lessons from Newton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Jon Dorling
Jon Dorling*
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
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Extract

On the model of Newton’s Principia, the great majority of successful new theories in physics have been introduced by deduction from the phenomena arguments. In such arguments an explanatory theory is deduced from one or more of the empirical facts, or lower level empirical generalizations, which it is designed to explain, by the device of adjoining suitable higher-level theoretical constraints on the form of the required theory. Those theoretical constraints leave certain parameters, the precise form of certain functions, and so on, in the new theory, undetermined, except with the help of the lower level empirical premises.

Type
Part V. Deduction From the Phenomena
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 197 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1991

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References

Dorling, J. (1987), “Schrödinger’s original interpretation of the Schrödinger equation: a rescue attempt,” Schrödinger, Centenary Celebrations of a Polymath.., Kilmister, C.W. (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Dorling, J. (1991), “Einstein’s methodology of discovery was Newtonian deductionfrom-the-phenomena,” Scientific Discovery.. (provisional title), Leplin, J. (ed.), University of California Press (forthcoming 1991).Google Scholar
Li, M. and Vitányi, P.M.B. (1991), “Inductive reasoning and Kolmogorov Complexity,” Proceedings of the 4th Annual IEEE Structure in Complexity Theory Conference 19..Google Scholar