Induction and Deduction in the Philosophy of Science: A Critical Account since the Methodenstreit

Abstract

Ever since Aristotle it has been accepted that there exists a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning and a sort of unified inductive-deductive methodology. If one analyzes the procedures and logic of scientific explanation and the methods of generating and justifying scientific knowledge, one recognizes the prototype of philosophy of science found in Aristotle’s inductive and deductive procedure that is described in his Posterior Analytics, Physics and Metaphysics, where he viewed scientific inquiry as a progression from observations to general principles and back to observation. He maintained that the scientist should induce explanatory principles from the phenomena to be explained, and then deduce statements about the phenomena from premisses which include these principles.1