William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 1)

Abstract

This series will summarize the major elements of William Whewell’s (1792–1866) theory of inductive reasoning, which he termed “Discoverer’s Induction.” Whewell (pronounced “Who-ell”) was a 19-century philosopher of science and a polymath, who believed that the true purpose of science was to form the clearest and most beneficial concepts that we possibly could manage.

Through scientific theorizing and testing, he believed that we could ultimately achieve this noble goal. These investigations would allow us to explicate, or unfold, our scientific concepts and colligate, or bind together, scientifically-tested facts with new or renovated terms that have benefitted from our extensive researches and testing. These tests will, among other things, compare facts to all other evidence available to the scientific community, and they will investigate if seemingly unrelated phenomena can be explained by a unifying hypothesis. The end results of these strict and relentless tests and hypotheses will be the creation of properly formed inductions, a greater and more cemented understanding of reality, and a greater interrelation between Whewell’s “fundamental antithesis of philosophy”: between thoughts and things.

Introduction

William Whewell (1794–1866) was a British philosopher of science, polymath, and was once a vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. He was a well-published scientist and a well-respected educator, having taught and written in the fields of philosophy, economics, geology, tidology (the study of tides), mechanics, astronomy and mechanics. He regularly discussed developments in various scientific fields with contemporaries such as physicists Michael Faraday (1791–1867) and James Maxwell (1831–1879), John Herschel (Astronomer and co-founder of photography), Charles Babbage (1791–1871; cryptographer, inventor, mechanical computer scientist) and Auguste De Morgan (1806–1871; logician and mathematician). He quite frequently coined new terms in various fields: his neologisms include astigmatism, electrode, cathode, physicist, philosophy of science, and even the word scientist itself in 1833. (Before Whewell, scientists were called natural philosophers or “men of science,” as women were not permitted to pursue scientific fields in those times.) His most notable accomplishments were among the first encyclopedias on science’s history and the articulation of one of the first comprehensive theories of the scientific method as a type of inductive reasoning. These respective series of volumes were titled History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Times (1837) and The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history (1840).

Whewell’s Approach to Induction

In the history of researches into inductive reasoning, it’s generally conceived to be a progression of reasoning from individual things or groups to universal abstractions and generalizations. Whewell does not agree with this framework: a generalization or proper conception is not formed by merely enumerating or reasoning from those individual instances. In his view, “there is a New Element added to the combination [of instances] by the very act of thought by which they were combined,” a new element which he would call a colligation (Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Volume 2, hereafter Philosophy II, p. 48). Colligation is a pivotal term in Whewell’s theory of inductive reasoning and of his scientific methodology.

Speaking on the relationship between the History and the Philosophy of the inductive sciences for Whewell, Dr. Laura Snyder (1964–; historian, writer, and philosopher) remarked that:

Whewell…, claimed to be inferring his philosophy of science from his study of the history and practice of science. His large-scale History of the Inductive Sciences was a survey of science from ancient to modern times. He insisted upon completing this work before writing his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history. (2012, Section 5, para 1)

Whewell spent years surveying and writing about the historical progression of the various fields of science, but this was not his only aim. He intended this historical project to be a necessary condition for being able to produce and present a new theory of inductive and scientific reasoning. He believes that this new way of thinking about induction would greatly benefit all fields, even those outside of science. He stated that “the progress of moral, and political, and philological, and other knowledge is governed by the same laws as that of physical science” (Philosophy I, 1847, p. 7). Alluding to his role as an Anglican priest, he once wrote to his friend Richard Jones (1790–1855; economist) that induction was the “true faith,” and expressed his desire to learn how this true theory could “best be propagated” (Part of a letter from Whewell to Jones from 1831, quoted in Snyder, 2006, 34).

In Whewell’s time, there was still an all-encompassing debate over what the essential elements of the scientific method were. Through his studies of history and conversations with close friends, scientists and philosophers themselves, he came to view a deductive view of science as the cause of many destructive elements within the scientific field, both in the past and in the present. Generally, Whewell sought a fundamental reformation of philosophy, science and of society to treat and cure these destructive elements. A novel, powerful theory of induction was the essential element of this reformation. Dr. Snyder notes that Whewell had two monumental goals that he set out to establish as part of his reformation. These two goals were to (1) discover the definition of the “true idea of induction,” and (2) “to get the people into a right way of thinking about induction” (Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society, 2006, p. 34).

Beyond researching the numerous histories of the sciences, Whewell also had to effectively create his own epistemology (theory of knowledge) to fully articulate his theory of induction. (The proper theory of induction is still an open issue in the field of epistemology, presumably requiring a sophisticated theory of concepts/universals, a theory of causality, abstract knowledge and conceptual relationships, among other topics.) By the time he wrote the Philosophy, he had worked out an intricate theory of knowledge that centered on specially-revised terms such as perceptions, ideas, fundamental ideas, facts, things, explication, colligation, terms and induction. (Notable terms in Whewell's theory will be italicized for this series.)

To get others into thinking of induction in the way that he did, he thought that it was best to begin with considering a fundamental distinction in knowledge and in life. He described this as the “dual nature of knowledge” and as the “fundamental antithesis” of philosophy. This will be the opening topic of the next part of this series.

References

Snyder, L. (2006). Reforming philosophy: A Victorian debate on science and philosophy.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Snyder, L. (2012). William Whewell. E. N. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/whewell/ (Original work published

2000)

Whewell, W. (1847). Philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their

               history (2nd ed.). London: John Parker.

Next posts: William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 2)
William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 3)
William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 4) 
William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 5)
William Whewell's "Discoverer's Induction" (Part 6/Final Part)