«So much the worse for logic»: Notes on William Whewell’s methodology

Titolo Rivista SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE
Autori/Curatori Enzo Campelli
Anno di pubblicazione 2016 Fascicolo 2016/111 Lingua Inglese
Numero pagine 137 P. 87-123 Dimensione file 339 KB
DOI 10.3280/SR2016-111005
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Without any pretense at being an exhaustive overview of William Whewell’s thoughts, this essay focuses on a few fundamental points, in which this semi-forgotten author anticipates with great clarity theses that today are shared by many scholars of scientific methodology. The themes highlighted intend to underline Whewell’s how contribution was ahead of its time, and include: the problem of the difficult delimitation between fact and theory; the critique of the traditional definition of inductive inference and the «invention» of retroduction or abduction (as Pierce will call them); a remarkably interesting model of bold conjectures, on which Popper will keenly focus

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Enzo Campelli, «So much the worse for logic»: Notes on William Whewell’s methodology in "SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE " 111/2016, pp 87-123, DOI: 10.3280/SR2016-111005