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Explaining Scientific Discovery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Noretta Koertge
Noretta Koertge*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

The history of science provides two prima facie reasons for believing that there is a “logic” to scientific discovery. The first is the phenomenon of multiple or simultaneous discoveries. The second is the fact that internalist historians of science (who eschew non-cognitive explanations) routinely explain how a discovery was made and why scientist X took an important step which scientist Y did not!

However, some philosophers have argued that purported historical explanations of discovery are all sleight-of-hand tricks—what we really have is a confused mixture of rational reconstructions of the justification steps in the process combined with a description, not an explanation, of the creative leaps. Others would claim that historians do indeed help us to understand scientific discoveries, but the mode of understanding involved is not that provided by the Hempelian covering law model. Rather we empathize with the creative leaps of past geniuses.

Type
Part I. Discovery, Rationality and History of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 14 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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