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Does Scientific Discovery Have a Logic?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon*
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
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Abstract

It is often claimed that there can be no such thing as a logic of scientific discovery, but only a logic of verification. By ‘logic of discovery’ is usually meant a normative theory of discovery processes. The claim that such a normative theory is impossible is shown to be incorrect; and two examples are provided of domains where formal processes of varying efficacy for discovering lawfulness can be constructed and compared. The analysis shows how one can treat operationally and formally phenomena that have usually been dismissed with fuzzy labels like ‘intuition’ and ‘creativity’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 471 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This research has been supported by a Public Health Service Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which is monitored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. I am indebted to Nicholas Rescher for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

REFERENCES

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