EPISTEMOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY MAIN TRENDS AND ENDS. (Ýïèñòåìîëîãèÿ è Ìåòîäîëîãèÿ) free essay sample

Anton Matyukhin ICEF, GROUP 3, ENGLISH GROUP 1. ESSAY IN PHILOSOPHY EPISTEMOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY: MAIN TRENDS AND ENDS. # 1052 ; # 1077 ; # 1078 ; # 1076 ; # 1091 ; # 1085 ; # 1072 ; # 1088 ; # 1086 ; # 1076 ; # 1085 ; # 1099 ; # 1081 ; # 1048 ; # 1085 ; # 1089 ; # 1090 ; # 1080 ; # 1090 ; # 1091 ; # 1090 ; # 1069 ; # 1082 ; # 1086 ; # 1085 ; # 1086 ; # 1084 ; # 1080 ; # 1082 ; # 1080 ; # 1080 ; # 1060 ; # 1080 ; # 1085 ; # 1072 ; # 1085 ; # 1089 ; # 1086 ; # 1074 ; , 1 # 1082 ; # 1091 ; # 1088 ; # 1089 ; , # 1042 ; # 1099 ; # 1089 ; # 1096 ; # 1072 ; # 1103 ; # 1096 ; # 1082 ; # 1086 ; # 1083 ; # 1072 ; # 1101 ; # 1082 ; # 1086 ; # 1085 ; # 1086 ; # 1084 ; # 1080 ; # 1082 ; # 1080 ; . 30.03.1999. Table OF Contentss: 1.Epistemology. 2. History. 3. Epistemology as a subject 4. TWO EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 5. Deductions. 6.Methodology. 7. Some Mental Activities Common to All Methods. 8. Observation and Experiment. 9. Analysis and Synthesis. 10. Imagination, Supposition and Idealisation. 11. Inference. 12. Comparison and Analogy. 13. Categorization. 14. Inductive and deductive methods. 15.The Deductive-inductive Method. 16.RELATION OF EPISTEMOLOGY TO OTHER BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY 17.Bibliography. Epistemology. Epistemology is one of the chief subdivisions of doctrine ; its capable affair concerns the nature, beginning, range, and bounds of human cognition. The name is derived from the Grecian footings episteme( cognition ) and logos( theory ) , and consequently this subdivision of doctrine is besides referred to as the theory of cognition. It is the subdivision of doctrine that investigates the basic nature of cognition, including its beginnings and proof. Epistemology is concerned with the basic relationship between adult male # 8217 ; s head and world, and with the basic operations of human ground. It hence sets the criterions for the proof of all cognition ; it is the cardinal supreme authority of cognitive method. Epistemology as a term in doctrine Washingtonsprob # 173 ; competently foremost applied, by J. F. Ferrier, to that section of idea whose capable affair is the nature and cogency of cognition ( Gr. epistimum,cognition, and Sons,theory, account ; Ger. Erkenntnistheorie ) .It is therefore contrasted with metaphysics, which considers the nature of world, and with psychological science, which deals with the nonsubjective portion of knowledge, and, as Prof. James Ward said, is basically familial in its method. Epistemology is con # 173 ; cerned instead with the possibility of cognition in the abstract. In the development of thought epistemic enquiry succeeded the guesss of the early minds, who concerned themselves chiefly with efforts to explicate being. The differences of sentiment, which arose on this job of course, led to the enquiry as to whether any universally valid statement was possible. The Sophists and the Sceptics, Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans took up t he inquiry and from the clip of Locke and Kant it has been prominent in modern doctrine. It is highly hard, if non impossible, to pull a difficult and fast line between epistemology and other subdivisions of doctrine. If, for illustration, doctrine is divided into the theory of cognizing and the theory of being, it is impossible wholly to divide the latter ( Ontology ) from the analysis of cognition ( Epistemology ) , so near is the connexion between the two. Again, the relation between logic in its widest sense and the theory of cognition is highly close. Some minds have identified the two, while others regard Epistemology as a subdivision of logic ; others de # 173 ; marcate their comparative domains by restricting logic to the scientific discipline of the Torahs of idea, i.e. ,to formal logic. An effort has been made by some philosophers to replace Gnosiology for Epistemology as a particular term for that portion of Epistemology which is confined to systematic analysis of t he constructs employed by ordinary and scientific idea in inter # 173 ; preting the universe, and including an probe of the art of cognition, or the nature of cognition as such. Epistemology would therefore be reserved for the wide inquiries of the beginning, nature and bounds of cognition . The term Gnosiology has non come into general usage. History. History. Epistemic issues have been discussed throughout the history of doctrine. Among the ancient Greeks, inquiries of cognition were raised by Plato and Aristotle, every bit good as by the Sophists and the Sceptics, and many of the main issues, places and statements were explored at this clip. In the systems of Plato and Aristotle, nevertheless, epistemic inquiries were mostly subordinated to metaphysical 1s, and epistemology did non emerge as a distinguishable country of enquiry. The pedants of the late medieval period were particularly concerned with two epistemic inquiries: the relationship between ground and religion, and the nature of constructs and universals. The major places on the latter issue # 8212 ; pragmatism, nominalism, and conceptualism # 8212 ; were defined during this period. The Reformation and the rise of modern scientific discipline raised inquiries about cognitive methodological analysis, and gave rise to a metempsychosis of doubting philosophies, tendencies that culminated in the Hagiographas of Rene Descartes ( 1596-1650 ) . During the modern period, from Descartes to Immanuel Kant ( 1724-1804 ) , epistemic concerns were at the head of doctrine, as minds attempted to understand the deductions of the new scientific discipline. They besides attempted, unsuccessfully, to cover with doubting onslaughts on the cogency of sense perceptual experience, constructs, and initiation. In the 19th and twentieth centuries, epistemic issues continued to have attending from philosophers of assorted schools, including Idealism, Logical Positivism, and Linguistic Analysis. A acquaintance with the history of doctrine provides the best debut to epistemology. The undermentioned plants are of particular importance for epistemology: # 183 ; Plato, Theaetetus # 183 ; Aristotle, Posterior Analytics # 183 ; Rene Descartes, Meditations # 183 ; John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding # 183 ; David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysicss Epistemology as a subject. Why should at that place be such a topic as epistemology? Aristotle provided the reply when he said that doctrine begins in admiration, in a sort of bewilderment about things. About all human existences wish to grok the universe they live in, a universe that includes the person every bit good as other individuals, and most people construct hypotheses of changing grades of edification to assist them do sense of that universe. No speculations would be necessary if the universe were simple ; but its characteristics and events defy easy account. The ordinary individual is likely to give up someplace in the procedure of seeking to develop a coherent history of things and to rest content with whatever grade of apprehension he has managed to accomplish. Philosophers, in contrast, are struck by, even obsessed by, affairs that are non instantly comprehendible. Philosophers are, of class, ordinary individuals in all respects except possibly one. They aim to build theories about the universe and its dwellers that are consistent, synoptic, true to the facts and that possess explanatory power. They therefore carry the procedure of enquiry further than people by and large tend to make, and this is what stating that they have developed a doctrine about these affairs agencies. Epistemologists, in peculiar, are philosophers whose theories deal with mystifiers about the nature, range, and bounds of human cognition. Like ordinary individuals, epistemologists normally start from the premise that they have plentifulness of cognition about the universe and its many-sided characteristics. Yet, as they reflect upon what is presumptively known, epistemologists begin to detect that normally accepted strong beliefs are less unafraid than originally assumed and that many of adult male s firmest beliefs are doubtful or perchance even chimeral. Anomalous characteristics of the universe that most people notice but tend to understate or disregard cause such uncertainties and vacillations. Epistemologists notice these things excessively, but, in inquiring about them, they come to gain that they provide profound challenges to the cognition claims that most persons happily and unreflectingly accept as true. What so are these perplexing issues? While there is a huge array of anomalousnesss and perplexities, two of these issues will be briefly described in order to exemplify why such troubles call into inquiry common claims to hold knowledge about the universe. TWO EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS Our cognition of the external universe . Most people have noticed that vision can play fast ones on them. A consecutive stick put in H2O expressions bent to them, but they know it is non ; railway paths are seen to be meeting in the distance, yet one knows that they are non ; the wheels of waggons on a film screen appear to be traveling rearward, but one knows that they are non ; and the pages of English-language books reflected in mirrors can non be read from left to compensate, yet one knows that they were printed to be read that manner. Each of these phenomena is therefore misdirecting in some manner. If human existences were to accept the universe as being precisely as it looks, they would be mistaken about how things truly are. They would believe the stick in H2O truly to be dead set, the railroad paths truly to be convergent, and the authorship on pages truly to be reversed. These are ocular anomalousnesss, and they produce the kinds of epistemic edginesss referred to above. Though they may look to the ordinary indivi dual to be simple jobs, non deserving serious notice, for those who ponder them they pose hard inquiries. For case, human existences claim to cognize that the stick is non truly dead set and the paths non truly convergent. But how do they cognize that these things are so? Suppose one says that this is known because, when the stick is removed from the H2O, one can see that it is non dead set. But does seeing a consecutive stick out of H2O provide a good ground for thought that it is non dead set when seen in H2O? How does one know that, when the stick is put into the H2O, it does non flex? Suppose one says that the paths do non truly meet because the train base on ballss over them at that point. How does one know that the wheels on the train do non go on to meet at that point? What justifies opposing some beliefs to others, particularly when all of them are based upon what is seen? One sees that the stick in H2O is dead set and besides that the stick out of the H2O is non dead set. Why is the stick declared truly to be straight ; why in consequence is precedence given to one perceptual experience over another? One possible response to these questions is that vision is non sufficient to give cognition of how things are. One needs to rectify vision in some other manner in order to get at the opinion that the stick is truly consecutive and non dead set. Suppose a individual asserts that his ground for believing the stick in H2O is non dead set is that he can experience it with his custodies to be straight when it is in the H2O. Feeling or touching is a manner of sense perceptual experience, although different from vision. What, nevertheless, justifies accepting one manner of perceptual experience as more accurate than another? After all, there are good grounds for believing that the haptic sense gives rise to misperception in merely the manner that vision does. If a individual chills one manus and warms the other, for illustration, and inserts both into a bath of H2O holding a unvarying medium temperature, the same H2O will experience warm to the cold manus and cold to the warm manus. Therefo re, the haptic sense can non be trusted either and certainly can non by itself be counted on to decide these troubles. Another possible response is that no manner of perceptual experience is sufficient to vouch that one can detect how things are. Therefore, it might be affirmed that one needs to rectify all manners of perceptual experience by some other signifier of consciousness in order to get at the opinion, say, that the stick is truly consecutive. Possibly that other manner is the usage of ground. But why should ground be accepted as infallible? It besides suffers from assorted liabilities, such as forgetting, misestimating, or leaping to decisions. And why should one trust ground if its decisions run counter to those gained through perceptual experience, since it is obvious that much of what is known about the universe derives from perceptual experience? Clearly there is a web of troubles here, and one will hold to believe hard in order to get at a clear and defendable account of the seemingly simple claim that the stick is truly consecutive. A individual who accepts the challenge will, in consequence, be developing a theory for coping with the celebrated job called our cognition of the external universe. That job turns on two issues, viz. , whether there is a world that exists independently of the person s perceptual experience of it in other words, if the grounds one has for the being of anything is what one perceives, how can one cognize that anything exists unperceived? and, 2nd, how one can cognize what anything is truly similar, if the perceptual grounds one has is conflicting. The other heads job. The 2nd job besides involves seeing but in a slightly unusual manner. It deals with that which one can non see, viz. the head of another. Suppose a adult female is scheduled to hold an operation on her right articulatio genus and her sawbones tells her that when she wakes up she will experience a crisp hurting in her articulatio genus. When she wakes up, she does experience the hurting the sawbones alluded to. He can hear her groaning and see certain deformations on her face. But he can non experience what she is experiencing. There is therefore a sense in which he can non cognize what she knows. What he claims to cognize, he knows because of what others who have undergone operations tell him they have experienced. But, unless he has had a similar operation, he can non cognize what it is that she feels. Indeed, the state of affairs is still more complicated ; for, even if the physician has had such a surgical intercession, he can non cognize that what he is experiencing after his operation is precisely the same esthesis that the adult female is experiencing. Because each individual s esthesis is private, the sawbones can non truly cognize that what the adult female is depicting as a hurting and what he is depicting as a hurting are truly the same thing. For all he knows, she could be mentioning to a esthesis that is entirely different from the one to which he is touching. In short, though another individual can comprehend the physical manifestations the adult female exhibits, such as facial faces and assorted kinds of behavior, it seems that merely she can hold cognition of the contents of her head. If this appraisal of the state of affairs is right, it follows that it is impossible for one individual to cognize what is traveling on in another individual s head. One can speculate that a individual is sing a certain esthesis, but one can non, in a rigorous sense of the term, know it to be the instance. If this analysis is right, one can reason that each human being is necessarily and even in rule cut off from holding cognition of the head of another. Most people, conditioned by the great progresss of modern engineering, believe that in rule there is nil in the universe of fact about which scientific discipline can non obtain cognition. But the other-minds job suggests the contrary viz. , that there is a whole sphere of private human experience that is immune to any kind of external enquiry. Therefore, one is faced with a profound mystifier, one of whose deductions is that there can neer be a scientific discipline of the human head. Deductions. These two jobs resemble each other in certain ways and differ in others, but both have of import deductions for epistemology. First, as the divergent perceptual experiences about the stick indicate, things can non merely be, as they appear to be. People believe that the stick, which looks set when it is in the H2O, is truly consecutive, and they besides believe that the stick, which looks directly when it is out of the H2O, is truly consecutive. But, if the belief that the stick in H2O is truly consecutive is right, so it follows that the perceptual experience human existences have when they see the stick in H2O can non be right. That peculiar perceptual experience is misdirecting with regard to the existent form of the stick. Hence, one has to reason that things are non ever, as they appear to be. It is possible to deduce a similar decision with regard to the head of another. A individual can exhibit all the marks of being in hurting, but he may non be. He may be feigning. On the footing of what can be observed, it can non be known with cocksureness that he is or that he is non in hurting. The manner he appears to be may be misdirecting with regard to the manner he really is. Once once more vision can be deceptive. Both jobs therefore force one to separate between the manner things appear and the manner they truly are. This is the celebrated philosophical differentiation between visual aspect and world. But, one time that differentiation is drawn, profound troubles arise about how to separate world from mere visual aspect. As will be shown, countless theories have been presented by philosophers trying to reply this inquiry since clip immemorial. Second, there is the inquiry of what is meant by cognition. People claim to cognize that the stick is truly consecutive even when it is half-submerged in H2O. But, as indicated earlier, if this claim is right, so knowledge can non merely be indistinguishable with perceptual experience. For whatever theory about the nature of cognition one develops, the theory can non hold as a effect that cognizing something to be the instance can sometimes be mistaken or misdirecting. Third, even if cognition is non merely to be identified with perceptual experience, there however must be some of import relationship between cognition and perceptual experience. After all, how could one cognize that the stick is truly consecutive unless under some conditions it looked directly? And sometimes a individual who is in hurting exhibits that pain by his behavior ; therefore there are conditions that truly involve the behavior of hurting. But what are those conditions? It seems apparent that the cognition that a stick is consecutive or that one is in great hurting must come from what is seen in certain fortunes: perceptual experience must someway be a cardinal component in the cognition human existences have. It is apparent that one needs a theory to explicate what the relationship is and a theory of this kind, as the history of the topic all excessively good indicates, is inordinately hard to develop. The two jobs besides differ in certain respects. The job of adult male s cognition of the external universe raises a alone trouble that some of the best philosophical heads of the twentieth century ( among them, Bertrand Russell, H.H. Price, C.D. Broad, and G.E. Moore ) spent their callings seeking to work out. The perplexity arises with regard to the position of the entity one sees when one sees a set stick in H2O. In such a instance, there exists an entity a dead set stick in H2O that one perceives and that appears to be precisely where the truly consecutive stick is. But clearly it can non be ; for the entity that exists precisely where the consecutive stick is is the stick itself, an entity that is non dead set. Therefore, the inquiry arises as to what sort of a thing this bent-stick-in-water is and where it exists. The responses to these inquiries have been countless, and about all of them raise farther troubles. Some theoreticians have denied that what one sees in such a instance is an existing entity at all but have found it hard to explicate why one seems to see such an entity. Still others have suggested that the image seen in such a instance is in one s head and non truly in infinite. But so what is it for something to be in one s head, where in the head is it, and why, if it is in the head, does it look to be out at that place, in infinite where the stick is? And above all, how does one make up ones mind these inquiries? The assorted inquiries posed above merely suggest the huge web of troubles, and in order to unbend out its tangles it becomes indispensable to develop theories. Methodology. In conformity with a proposal made above, epistemology, or the logic of scientific find, -should be identified with the theory of scientific method. The theory of method, in so far as it goes beyond the strictly logical analysis of the dealingss between scientific statements, is concerned with the pick of methods # 8212 ;with determinations about the manner in which scientific statements are to be dealt with. These determinations will of class depend in their bend upon the purpose, which we choose from among a figure of possible purposes. Methodologyor a scientific methodis a corporate term denoting the assorted procedures by the assistance of which the scientific disciplines are built up. In a broad sense, any manner of probe by which scientific or other impartial and systematic cognition is acquired is called a scientific method. What are the regulations of scientific method, and why do we necessitate them? Can at that place be a theory of such regulations, a methodological analysis? The manner in which one answers these inquiries will mostly depend upon one # 8217 ; s attitude to scientific discipline. The manner in which one answers these inquiries will mostly depend upon one s attitude to scientific discipline. Those who, like the rationalists, see empirical scientific discipline as a system of statements, which satisfy certain logical standards,such as meaningfulness or verifiability, will give one-answer. A really different reply will be given by those who tend to see the separating feature of empirical statements in their susceptibleness to alteration # 8212 ; in the fact that they can be criticised, -and superseded by better 1s ; and who regard it as their undertaking to analyze the characteristic ability of scientific discipline to progress, and the characteristic mode in which a pick is made, in im portant instances, between conflicting systems of theories. Such methods, as it was mentioned above, are of two chief types # 8212 ; proficientand logical. A proficientor technological method is a method of pull stringsing the phenomena under probe, mensurating them with preciseness, and finding the conditions under which they occur, so as to be able to detect them in a favorable and fruitful mode. A logical methodis a method of concluding about the phenomena investigated, a method of pulling illations from the conditions under which they occur, so as to construe them every bit accurately as possible. The term scientific method in the first case likely suggests to most heads the proficient methods of use and measuring. These proficient methods are really legion and they are different in the different scientific disciplines. Few work forces of all time master the proficient methods of more than one scientific discipline or one group of closely connected scientific disciplines. An history of the most of import proficient methods is normally given in connexion with the several scientific disciplines. It would be impossible, even if it were desirable, to give a utile study of all, or even of the most of import, proficient methods of scientific discipline. It is different with the logical methods of scientific discipline. These methods of concluding from the available grounds are non truly legion, and are basically the same in all the scientific disciplines. It is both Po ssible and desirable to study them in lineation. Furthermore, these logical methods of scientific discipline are in a really existent sense the psyche of the proficient methods. In pure scientific discipline the proficient methods are non regarded as an terminal in themselves, but simply as a agency to the find of the nature of the phenomena under probe. This is done by pulling decisions from the observations and experiments, which the proficient methods render possible. Sometimes the proficient methods make it possible for the expert research worker to detect and mensurate certain phenomena, which otherwise could either non be observed and measured at all, or non so accurately. Sometimes they enable him so to find the conditions of their happening that he can pull dependable decisions about them, alternatively of hav # 173 ; ing to be content with unverified speculations. The extremely specu # 173 ; lative, chiefly divinatory character of early scientific discipline was no uncertainty due wholly to the deficiency of suited proficient methods and scientific instruments. In a sense ; hence, it may be said that the techni # 173 ; cal methods of scientific d iscipline are subsidiary to the logical methods, or methods of concluding. And it is these methods that are to be con # 173 ; sidered in the present article. The proficient methods of scientific discipline, as ought to be clear from the predating comments, are of first rate importance, and we have non the remotest desire to underestimate them ; but it would be futile to try to study them here. Some Mental Activities Common to All Methods. There are certain mental activities, which are so perfectly indispensable to science that they are practically ever employed in scientific probes, nevertheless much these may change in other respects. In a broad sense these mental activities might accordingly be called methods of scientific discipline, and they are often so called. But this pattern is obnoxious, because it leads to traverse division and confusion. What is common to all methods should non itself be called a method, for it merely encourages the effacing of of import differences ; and when there are many such factors common to all the methods, or most of them, confusion is inevitable. When the mental activities involved are more or less common to the methods, these must be differentiated by mention to other, variable factors # 8212 ; such as the different types of informations from which the illations are drawn, and the different types of order sought or discovered in the different sorts, of phenomena investigated # 8 212 ; the two sets of differences being, of class, closely connected. The mental activities referred to are the undermentioned: Observation ( including experiment ) , analysis and synthesis, imaginativeness, swallow # 173 ; place and idealization, illation ( inductive and deductive ) , and comparing ( including analogy ) . A few words must be said about each of these ; but no significance should be attached to the order in which they are dealt with. Observation and Experiment. Observation is the act of groking things and events, their properties and their con # 173 ; crete relationships. From the point of position of scientific involvement two types of observation may be distinguished, viz. : ( 1 ) The bare observationof phenomena under conditions which are beyond the control of the research worker, and ( 2 ) experiment,that is, the observation of phenomena under conditions controlled by the in # 173 ; vestigator. What distinguishes experiment from au naturel observation is controlover what is observed, non the usage of scientific setup, nor the sum of problem taken. The mere usage of telescopes or microscopes, etc. , even the choice of specially suited times and topographic points of observation, does non represent an experiment, if there is no control over the phenomenon observed. On the other manus, where there is such control, there is experiment, even if following to no setup be used, and the sum of problem involved be negligible. The devising of ex periments normally demands the employment of proficient methods, but the chief involvement Centres in the observations made possible thereby. The great advantage of experiment over au naturel observation is that it renders possible a more dependable analysis of complex phenomena, and more dependable illations about their connexions, by the fluctuation of circum # 173 ; stances, which it effects. Its importance is so great that people normally speak of experimental method. The expostulation to this is that experiment may be, and is, used in connexion with assorted methods, which are differentiated on other, and more legitimate, evidences. To talk of a method of observation is even less allowable, seeing that no method can be employed without it. Analysis and Synthesis. The phenomena of nature are really complex and, to all visual aspects, really baffled. The find of any sort of order in them is merely rendered possible by procedures of analysis and synthesis. These are as indispensable to all scientific probe as is observation itself. The procedure of analysis is helped by the comparing of two or more objects or events that are similar in some respects and different in others. But while comparing is a necessary instrument of analysis, analysis, in its bend, renders possible more exact comparing. After analyzing some complex whole into its parts or facets, we may tentatively link one of these with another in order to detect a jurisprudence of connexion, or we may, in imaginativeness, combine once more some of them and so organize an thought of what may be common to many objects or events, or to whole categories of them. Some combinations so obtained may non match to anything that has of all time been observed. In this manner analysis and synthesis, even though they are simply mental in the first case, fix the manner for experiment, for find and innovation. Imagination, Supposition and Idealisation. Such order as may be built-in in the phenomena of nature is non obvious on the face of them. It has to be sought out by an active question of nature. The question takes the signifier of doing probationary guesss, with the assistance of imaginativeness, as to what sort of order might predominate in the phenomena under probe. Such guesss are normally known as hypotheses, and the formation of fruitful hypotheses requires imaginativeness and originality, every bit good as acquaintance with the facts investigated. Without the counsel of such hypotheses observation itself would be barren in scientific discipline for we should non cognize what to look for. Mere gazing at facts is non yet scientific observation of them. Hence for scientific discipline any hypothesis, provided it can be put to the trial of observation or experiment, is better than none. For observation non guided by thoughts is unsighted, merely as thoughts non tested by observations are empty. Hypotheses that can be put to t he trial, even if they should turn out to be false, are called fruitful ; those that can non be so tried even if they should finally be found to be true, are for the clip being called waste. Closely connected with the procedures of imaginativeness and guess is the procedure of idealization, that is, the procedure of gestating the ideal signifier or ideal bound of something which may be discernible but ever falls short, in its ascertained signifiers, of the ideal. The usage of restricting instances in mathematics, and of constructs like those of an economic adult male in scientific discipline are illustrations of such idealization. Inference. This is the procedure of organizing opinions or sentiments on the land of other opinions or on the grounds of observation. The grounds may be simply supposed for the interest of statement, or with a position to the farther consideration of the con-sequences, which follow from it. It is non ever easy to pull the line between direct observation and illation. Peoples, even trained people, do non ever gain, e.g. ,when they pass from the observation of a figure of facts to a generalization which, at best, can merely be regarded as an illation from them. But the trouble need non be exaggerated. There are two chief types of illation, viz. deductive and inductive. Inductive illationis the procedure of deducing some sort of order among phenomena from observations made. Deductive illationis the procedure of using general truths or constructs to suited cases. In scientific discipline inductive illation plays the most of import function, and the methods of scientific disciplines are mainly instr uments of initiation or aides thereto. But deductive illation is besides necessary to science, and is, in fact, a portion of about all complete inductive probes. Still, marked inductive ability is really rare. There are 1000s who can more or less right use a find for one who can do it. Comparison and Analogy. Mention has already been made to the importance of the procedure of comparing in the mental analysis of ascertained phenomena. The observation of similarities and differences, aided by the procedures of analysis and synthesis, is one of the first stairss to knowledge of every sort, and continues to be indispensable to the chase of scientific discipline throughout its advancement. But there are grades of similarity. Thingss may be so likewise that they are at one time treated as cases of the same sort or category. And the preparation and application of generalizations of all sorts are based upon this possibility of groking such category resemblances. On the other manus, there is a similitude, which stops abruptly of such close category similitude. Such similarity is normally called analogy. The term is applied to similarity of construction or of map or of relationship, in fact, to similarity of about every sort except that which characterises members of the same category, in the rigor ous sense of the term. And analogy dramas really of import portion in the work of scientific discipline, particularly in proposing those guesss or hypotheses which, as already explained, are so indispensable to scientific research and find. After this brief study of assorted mental activities which are more or less involved in the chase of every sort of cognition, and accordingly from no suited bases for the distinction of the assorted methods of scientific discipline, we may now continue to the consideration of the several scientific methods decently so called. Categorization. This may be described as the oldest and simplest of scientific methods. The observation of similarities be # 173 ; tween certain things, and sorting them together, marks the earliest effort to detect some sort of order in the seemingly helter-skelter clutter of things that confront the human head. Language bears witness to the huge figure of categorizations made spontaneously by pre-scientific adult male. For every common noun expresses the acknowledgment of a category ; and linguistic communication is much older than scientific discipline. The first categorizations subserved purely practical intents, and had mention chiefly to the utilizations which adult male could do of the things classified. They were often besides based on superficial resemblances, which veiled deeper differences, or were influenced by superficial differences, which diverted attending from deeper similarities. But with the growing of the scientific spirit classifica # 173 ; tions became more nonsubjective or m ore natural, attending being paid to the nonsubjective nature of the things themselves instead than to their human utilizations. Even now scientific categorization seldom begins at the beginning, but sets out from current categorizations embodied in linguistic communication. It has frequent juncture to rectify popular classifica # 173 ; tions. At the same clip it has troubles of its ain, and more than one scientific discipline has been held up for centuries for privation of a truly satisfactory strategy or categorization of the phenomena representing its field of probe. To recognize a category is to recognize the integrity of indispensable properties in a multiplicity of cases ; it is a acknowledgment of the 1 in the many. To that extent it is a Dis # 173 ; covery of order in things. And although it is the simplest method of scientific discipline, and can be applied before any other method, it is besides the cardinal method, inasmuch as its consequences are normally as # 173 ; su med when the other methods are applied. For scientific discipline is non, as a regulation, concerned with persons as such, but with sorts or categories. This means that the research worker normally assumes the truth of the categorization of the phenomena, which he is study # 173 ; ing. Of class, this does non ever turn out to be the instance. And the concluding result of the application of other methods of scientific discipline to certain sorts of phenomena may be a new categorization of them. Inductive and deductive methods. Below is the sum-up of contrasts in the major dogmas of inductivism and of Popper s deductivism..I begin with a imitation of inductivism in the signifier of eight theses: 1. Science strives for justified, proved cognition, for certain truth. 2. All scientific enquiry begins with observations or experiments. 3. The experimental or experimental informations are organised into a hypothesis, which is non yet proven ( context of find ) . 4. The observations or experiments are repeated many times. 5. The greater the figure of successful repeats, the higher the chance of the truth of the hypothesis ( context of justifica # 173 ; tion ) . 6. Equally shortly as we are satisfied that we have reached certainty in that mode we lay the issue aside everlastingly as a proved jurisprudence of nature. 7. We so turn to the following observation or experiment with which we proceed in the same mode. 8. With the concurrence of all these proved theories we build the building of justified and certain scientific discipline. In drumhead, the inductivist believes that scientific discipline moves from the specifics to the general and that the truth of the peculiar information is transmitted to the general theory. Now we will detect a imitation of Popper s theory of deduc-tivism, once more in the signifier of eight theses: 1. Science strives for absolute and nonsubjective truth, but it can neer make certainty. 2. All scientific enquiry begins with a rich context of background cognition and with the jobs within this context and with metaphysical research programmes. 3. A theory, that is, a conjectural reply to a job, is freely invented within the metaphysical research programme: it explains the discernible by the unobservable. 4. Experimentally testable effects, make bolding effects that is, are deduced from the theory and matching experi # 173 ; ments are carried out to prove the anticipations. 5. If an experimental consequence comes out as predicted, it is taken as a value in itself and as an encouragement to go on with the theory, but it is non taken as an component of cogent evidence of the theory of the unobservable. 6. Equally shortly as an experimental consequence comes out against the pre # 173 ; enunciation and we arc satisfied that it is non a blooper we decide to see the theory falsified, but merely tentatively so. 7. With this we gain a deeper apprehension of our job and continue to contrive our following conjectural theory for work outing it, which we treat once more in the same manner. 8. The concatenation of all these speculations and defenses constitutes the kineticss of scientific advancement, traveling of all time closer to the truth, but neer making certainty. In drumhead, the Popperian deductivist believes that scientific discipline moves from the general to the specifics and back to the general # 8212 ; a procedure without terminal. Let me shoot a metaphor. I might compare the Popperian position of scientific discipline to that of a passenger car with two Equus caballuss. The experimental Equus caballus is strong, but blind. The theoretical Equus caballus can see, but it can non draw. Merely both together can convey the auto # 173 ; riage frontward. And behind it leaves a path bearing informant to the ceaseless battle of test and mistake. The Deductive-inductive Method. Merely as money makes money, so knowledge already acquired facilitates the acquisition of more cognition. It is every bit apparent in the instance of the method, which will now prosecute our attending. The advancement of scientific discipline, and of cognition by and large, is often facilitated by supplementing the simpler inductive methods by deductive concluding from cognition already acquired. Such a combination of tax write-off with initiation, J. S. Mill called the Deductive Method, by which he truly meant the Deduc # 173 ; tive Method of Induction. To avoid the confusion of the De # 173 ; ductive Method with mere tax write-off, which is merely one portion of the whole method, it is better to depict it as the Deductive-Inductive Method or the Inductive-Deductive Method. Mill distinguished two chief signifiers of this method as applied to the survey of natural phenomena, -namely, ( 1 ) that signifier of it in which tax write-off precedes initiation, and ( 2 ) that in which induc # 173 ; tion precedes tax write-off. The first of these ( 1 ) he called the Physical Method ; the 2nd ( 2 ) he called the Historical Method. These names are instead deceptive, inasmuch as both signifiers of the method are often employed in natural philosophies, where some # 173 ; times, say in the survey of visible radiation, mathematical ( i.e. ,deductive ) computations precede and suggest physical experiments ( i.e. ,induc # 173 ; tion ) , and sometimes the inductive consequences of observation or ex # 173 ; periment provide the juncture or stimulation for mathematical de # 173 ; ductions. In any instance, the differences in order of sequence are of no great importance, and barely merit separate names. What is of importance is to observe the chief sorts of juncture, which call for the usage of this combined method. They are chiefly three in figure: ( 1 ) When an hypothesis can non be verified ( i.e. ,tested ) straight, but merely indirectly ; ( 2 ) when it is possible to systematize a figure of already established initiations, or Torahs, under more comprehensive Torahs or theories ; ( 3 ) when, owing to the troubles of certain jobs, or on history of the deficiency of sufficient and suited cases of the phenomena under in # 173 ; vestigation, it is considered desirable either to corroborate an induc # 173 ; tive consequence by independent deductive logical thinking from the nature of the instance in the visible radiation of old cognition, or to corroborate a deductive decision by independent inductive probe. An illustration of each of these types may assist to do them clear. ( 1 ) When Galileo was look intoing the jurisprudence of the speed of falling organic structures he finally formed the hypothesis that a organic structure get downing from remainder falls with a unvarying acceleration, and that its speed varies with the clip of its autumn. But he could non invent any method for the direct confirmation of this hypothesis. By mathematical tax write-off, nevertheless, he arrived at the decision that a organic structure falling harmonizing to his conjectural jurisprudence would fall through a distance proportionate to the clip of its autumn. This effect could be tested by comparing the distances and the clip of falling organic structures, which therefore served as an indirect verifica # 173 ; tion of his hypothesis. ( 2 ) By initiations from legion astro # 173 ; nomical observations made by Tycho Brahe and himself, Kepler discovered the three familiar Torahs called by his name, viz. , ( a ) that the planets move in elliptic orbits which have the Sun for one of their focal point ; ( 6 ) that the speed of a planet is such that the radius vector ( i.e. ,an fanciful line fall ining the traveling planet to the Sun ) sweeps out equal countries in equal periods of clip ; and ( degree Celsius ) that the squares of the periodic times of any two planets ( that is, the times which they take to finish their revolutions round the Sun ) are relative to the regular hexahedrons of their average distances from the Sun. These three Torahs appeared to be rather independent of each other. But Newton systematised them all in the more comprehensive initiation, or theory, of heavenly gravity. He showed that they could wholly be deduced from the one jurisprudence that the planets tend to travel towards each other with a force changing straight with the merchandise of their multitudes, and reciprocally with the square of the distances between them. ( 3 ) H. Spencer, by comparing a figure of preponderantly industrial States and besides, of preponderantly military States, antediluvian and modern, inferred inductively that the former type of State is democratic and gives rise to free establishments, whereas the latter type is undemocratic and tends to oppression. As the sparse grounds barely permitted of a strict application of any of.the inductive methods, Spencer tried to corroborate his decision by deductive logical thinking from the nature of the instance in the visible radiation of what is known about the human head. He pointed out that in a type of society, which is preponderantly industrial, the trading dealingss between persons are the prevailing dealingss, and these develop them to humor and see others. The consequence is a democratic attitude in all. In a State, which is preponderantly military, the dealingss which are most common among its members are those of authorization, on the one portion, and of subordination on the other. The consequence is the contr ary of a democratic ambiance. RELATION OF EPISTEMOLOGY TO OTHER BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY In decision, I would wish to discourse the relation of epistemology to other subdivisions of doctrine. Doctrine viewed in the broadest possible footings divides into many subdivisions: metaphysics, moralss, aesthetics, logic, doctrine of linguistic communication, doctrine of head, doctrine of scientific discipline, and a gamut of others. Each of these subjects has its particular capable affair: for metaphysics it is the ultimate nature of the universe ; for moralss, the nature of the good life and how people ideally ought to behave themselves in their dealingss with others ; and for doctrine of scientific discipline, the methodological analysis and consequences of scientific activity. Each of these subjects efforts to get at a systematic apprehension of the issues that arise in its peculiar sphere. The word systematic is of import in this connexion, mentioning, as explained earlier, to the building of sets of rules or theories that are broad-ranging, consistent, and rationally defend able. In consequence, such theories can be regarded as sets of complex claims about the assorted affairs that are under consideration. Epistemology stands in a stopping point and particular relationship to each of these subjects. Though the assorted divisions of doctrine differ in their capable affair and frequently in the attacks taken by philosophers to their characteristic inquiries, they have one characteristic in common: the desire to get at the truth about that with which they are concerned state, about the cardinal ingredients of the universe or about the nature of the good life for adult male. If no such claims were asserted, there would be no demand for epistemology. But, one time theses have been advanced, places staked out, and theories proposed, the characteristic inquiries of epistemology inexorably follow. How can one cognize that any such claim is true? What is the grounds in favor of ( or against ) it? Can the claim be proven? Virtually all of the subdivisions of doctrine therefore give rise to epistemic ponderings. These ponderings may be described as first-order questions. They in bend necessarily bring forth others that are, as it were, second-order questions, and which are every bit or more troubling. What is it to cognize something? What counts as grounds for or against a peculiar theory? What is meant by a cogent evidence? Or even, as the Grecian Sceptics asked, is human cognition possible at all, or is human entree to the universe such that no cognition and no cocksureness about it is possible? The replies to these second-order inquiries besides require the building of theories, and in this regard epistemology is no different from the other subdivisions of doctrine. One can therefore specify or characterize epistemology as that subdivision of doctrine, which is dedicated to the declaration of such first- and second-order questions. Bibliographies: 1.A foreword to the logic of scientific discipline, by Peter Alexander, Sheed and Ward, London and New York, 1963. 2.Popper choices,edited by Dawid Miller, Princeton University imperativeness, 1985. 3.The critical attack to science and doctrine, edited by Mario Bunge, The free imperativeness of Glencoe Collier- Magmillan limited, London, 1964. 4.Britannica encyclopedia, 1948. 5.Logic without metaphysics, by Ernest Nagel, Glencoe, Ill.. : Free Press, 1957. 6. Epistemology, History of, ,by D.W. Hamlyn.The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. 7.Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,expanded 2nd ed. , by Ayn Rand, New York: Penguin Group, 1990.