Is there a scientific method? The analytic model of science

Abstract

The nature of the scientific method has been a main concern of philosophy from Plato to Mill. In that period logic has been considered to be a part of the methodology of science. Since Mill, however, the situation has completely changed. Logic has ceased to be a part of the methodology of science, and no Discourse on method has been written. Both logic and the methodology of science have stopped dealing with the process of discovery, and generally with the actual process of scientific research. As a result, several first-rate scientists, from Feynman and Weinberg to Dyson and Hawkins, have concluded that philosophy has become useless and totally irrelevant to science. The aim of this paper is to give some indications as to how to develop a logic concerned with the process of discovery and a methodology of science dealing with the actual process of scientific research.