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iCHSTM 2013 Programme • Version 5.3.6, 27 July 2013 • ONLINE (includes late changes)
Index | Paper sessions timetable | Lunch and evening timetable | Main site |
In the 1960’s the problem of scientific discovery became a topic that has been under interest of the philosophers of science. The basic idea is to study the whole dynamic process of scientific reasoning. There are several different approaches that focus the attention to the problematic. In the following we will consider the dynamics of scientific inquiry analysing inquiry as a questioning process. The questioning approach has deep historical roots starting from Socratic method of questioning. Inquiry as a questioning process has to be analyzed as a strategic process in which the logic of inquiry is based on the logic of questions and answers. The questioning process is a strategic, goal-directed process. Evaluations of the questioning processes are done on the level of strategy. So, the goodness of the steps in the whole questioning process is evaluated only relative to the whole strategy. The central idea is to characterize scientific reasoning as an ampliative process in which the ampliativity is the property of the whole process not of any singular step; especially the ampliativity is not a property of underlying logic. So, the usual Humean induction does not play the central role in reasoning by questioning. The questions are addressed to some outer source of information. The reliability of the sources of information is the central property. If the sources of information are known to be reliable then the results inferred are also known to be true. In this case the resulting logic can be characterized as a pure logic of discovery. On the other hand, if the sources of information are known to be unreliable then we have to develop a logic in which the forthcoming answers should be evaluated. Some of the answers may be rejected and later accepted. The operators of rejecting and accepting make the whole process more complicated but at the same more realistic. For example, this allows us to develop a logic of justification. The fundamental aspect in this logic of justification is to handle the probability of the forthcoming information. To develop the more general logic of discovery we have to develop the method of analyzing the epistemic power of different interrogative processes that give the same result. The notion of interrogative independence plays the central role here. That is called the consilience of induction by Whewell.