“The Whole Box of Tools”: William Whewell and the Logic of Induction

Snyder, Laura J.

doi:10.1016/s1874-5857(08)80008-8

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Yet, I won't say more about that here. For a reconstruction, see (Snyder 2008). understanding of induction as an inference from the known to the unknown.…”

Section: Describing the Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it has been argued that his insistence on the "genius" is takes to organize chaotic data into a coherent scientific account may be seen as "complimentary" to Mill's empiricist account of scientific discovery (Scarre 1998, 135), that his "broad" view of induction, pace Mill, was more a benefit than a liability (Snyder 2008;Forster 2011), that his anti-essentialist theory of classification anticipated Wittgenstein's theory of family likeness (Wilkins 2013, 225), and that his theory of consilience was endowed with real explanatory value (Quinn 2017). Yet, what about Whewell's fundamental-antithesis view and his ensuing anti-positivist argument?…”

Section: A Brief Assessment Of Whewell's Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Reception of Positivism in Whewell, Mill and Brentano

Dewalque¹

2022

Brentano and the Positive Philosophy of Comte and Mill

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This article compares and contrasts the reception of Comte's positivism in the works of William Whewell, John Stuart Mill and (to a lesser extent) Franz Brentano. It is argued that Whewell's rejection of positivism derives from his endorsement of (what I shall call) a constructivist account of the inductive sciences, while Mill and Brentano's sympathies for positivism are connected to their endorsement of an empiricist account. The mandate of the article is to spell out the chief differences between these two rival accounts. In the last, conclusive section, Whewell's anti-positivist argument is briefly assessed, and rebutted.This article compares and contrasts the reception of Auguste Comte's positivism in the works of William Whewell, John Stuart Mill and (to a lesser extent) Franz Brentano. Admittedly, the central tenet of positivism is that positive sciences aim at discovering the laws of phenomena, that is, the "invariable relations of succession and resemblance" thereof -and nothing more (Comte 1852, 1:15; 1896, 1:2). This view has not been equally well received in British philosophy. While Mill, after Herbert Spencer, deems Comte's lectures on Positive Philosophy "an essentially sound view of philosophy, with a few capital errors" (Mill 1865; 1985, 265), Whewell rejects positivism outright and maintains that Comte's "opinions on the philosophy and history of sciences" are "of no value" (Whewell 1866, 353). A few years later, Brentano, in his well-known Chilianeum article, takes sides with Mill and readily states that "there is perhaps no other philosopher in recent times so highly deserving our attention as Comte himself" (Brentano 1869; 1926, 99) 1 .The goal of the present study is to understand the main rationales behind these diverging assessments. I argue that the latter are best explained in light of the substantial disagreement betweenWhewell and Mill-Brentano on the nature of induction and the inductive sciences. Whereas these three authors lay stress on the importance of collecting facts and ascending from there to general propositions, they disagree on how the inductive scientist builds up his/her theories. Very roughly put, Whewell's rejection of positivism mainly derives from his endorsement of (what I shall call) a constructivist account of the inductive sciences, while Mill and Brentano's sympathies for positivism1 For a recent reconstruction of Comte's influence on Brentano, see (Fisette 2018). See also (Schmit 2002).

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“…Yet, I won't say more about that here. For a reconstruction, see (Snyder 2008). understanding of induction as an inference from the known to the unknown.…”

Section: Describing the Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Brief Assessment Of Whewell's Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reception of Positivism in Whewell, Mill and Brentano

Dewalque¹

2022

Brentano and the Positive Philosophy of Comte and Mill

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“…Unfortunately, that question is outside the scope of this essay; my focus in this section is on arguing that Whewell's response to Mill can be understood as part of his broader semantic view on induction. For a more thorough examination of this debate and what is at stake within it, see Snyder (2008), Cobb (2011), or Forster (2011.…”

Section: The Justificatory Importance Of the Order Of Discoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Whewell, Newtonian gravity unifies (and thus makes predictions about) more than observed positions. It also makes predictions about the characteristics of planets, comets, aphelia, and so on, as kinds, as Snyder (2005) argues. To simply hypothesize this theory and then test it ignores or at least obscures the structure of the theory and thus fails to independently test or confirm these crucial predictions (Snyder 2005, 135-36;cf.…”

Section: The Justificatory Importance Of the Order Of Discoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I begin by briefly laying out Whewell's general epistemology of science. Then, bringing together recent work by Snyder (2005) and Forster (2011), I argue that on Whewell's account, induction should be understood as an ampliative model-building procedure that is successful if the abstract objects that it creates have "the same" structure as found in the world. 2 As such, this procedure is usefully seen as akin to the semantic view of theories in the way that it presents an alternative to the more sentence-or proposition-focused accounts of induction prevalent in twentieth-century debates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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William Whewell’s Semantic Account of Induction

Dethier¹

2018

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History

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William Whewell's account of induction differs dramatically from the one familiar from twentieth-century debates. I argue that Whewell's induction can be usefully understood by comparing the difference between his views and more standard accounts to contemporary debates between semantic and syntactic views of theories: rather than understanding inductive inference as capturing a relationship between sentences or propositions, Whewell understands it as a method for constructing a model of the world. The difference between this ("semantic") view and the more familiar ("syntactic") picture of induction is reflected in other aspects of Whewell's philosophy of science, particularly his treatment of consilience and the order of discovery. What is meant by success in these cases? To this we reply, that our inquiry must be, whether the facts have the same relation in the hypothesis which they have in reality. (William Whewell 1840/2014b, 210

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Quantitative realizations of philosophy of science: William Whewell and statistical methods

Johnson

2011

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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“The Whole Box of Tools”: William Whewell and the Logic of Induction

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

The Reception of Positivism in Whewell, Mill and Brentano

The Reception of Positivism in Whewell, Mill and Brentano

William Whewell’s Semantic Account of Induction

Quantitative realizations of philosophy of science: William Whewell and statistical methods

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