Summary
A sketch is given of a way of looking at science. Research is viewed as a complex of cognitive processes with theoretical and experimental sides. A distinction is made between context of discovery and context of presentation. In the latter “paragons of science” come into play. From this platform the “theory of research” of Christian Huygens is examined, in its contemporary situation between Baconian empiricism and Cartesian rationalism, and in connection with Galileo's outlook on method. Huygens' attitude on legitimating the results of his research production is also examined. The paper employs a method of case study, which is also discussed.
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Literaturhinweise
For a more detailed account of this platform, which is being developed at the Institution for the Theory of Science at the University of Göteborg in seminars led by Håkan Törnebohm, the reader is referred to the following publications: Radnitzky (1968), Skarsgård (1968) Törnebohm (1970, I, II, III), Törnebohm & Bärmark (1970), Törnebohm & Radnitzky (1971). The approach of the present paper may also be compared with Tore Nordenstam's, in Sudanese Ethics (1968), which also involves a method of reconstruction on the basis of fragmentary documentary material.
In this context it is relevant to refer to the contemporary debate which brings the history and the philosophy of science closer to each other in the general spirit that the former without the latter is blind, and the latter without the former is empty. Influential in this reorientation of the modern philosophy of science are Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend — see especially Lakatos & Musgrave eds, (1970). Our own work in Ambjörnsson & Elzinga (1969) is also inspired by this spirit. Elsewhere is developed our concern for bringing together the theory of research and science policy; the aim is a dual one, viz., firstly using considerations from the general theory of research to the end of criticism of science policy, and secondly to proceed a step further recognizing that the general theory of research must act as an instrument for guiding and rationally underpinning correct science policy-making. See for example: Ambjörnsson, Andersson, Elzinga (1969); Andersson & Elzinga (1969); Ambjörnsson & Elzinga (Lund 1969); Anderson & Radnitzky (1970).
The sourcebook which is a treasury for both philosophers and historians of science is Huygens'Œuvres Complètes in 22 vol. (1888–1950).
Hampshire, 21–22.
Koyré, 99.
O. C., III. 197 (letter of 28 Nov. 1660, to Leopold de Medici).
Discourse on Method, part II, Montgomery and Chandler ed. TheRationalists, New York, undated, p. 51. Descartes confided his ideal to Mersenne as early as 1629, the year in which he composed his methodological work,Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii (Rules for the direction of the Mind) which was not published until 1701 in theOpera Posthuma. In 1637 he referred to it in hisDiscours de la Méthode, seeŒuvres, 359–469.
Principia, II, § 36,Œuvres, VIII, 61.
11 Oct. 1638,Œuvres, II, 380–402.
Le Monde, Œuvres, XI, 47 transl. Blakeet al, 76.
Dijksterhuis,Mech WP, 407.
Feyerabend,Knowledge without Foundations.
Two creators of modern mechanics, Einstein and Infeld, write in theirThe Evolution of Physics: “It is a familiar fact to readers of detective fiction that a false clew muddles the story and postpones the solution. The method of reasoning dictated by intuition was wrong and led to false ideas of motion which were held for centuries. Aristotle's great authority throughout Europe was perhaps the chief reason for the strong belief in this intuitive idea ... ‘The moving body comes to a standstill when the force which pushes it along can no longer act so as to push it’ ... (modern) discovery taught us that intuitive conclusions based on immediate observation are not always to be trusted, for they sometimes lead to wrong clews.” (p. 6–7).
Various writers have pointed out how, in contrast to the mechanical science of the 17th century, Aristotle's systems of ideas is not at all so counter-intuitive, nor counter-inductive, but actually much nearer and based on immediate observation. A. N. Whitehead calls the Aristotelian classificatory scheme of unity of thought and action, “an almost perfect example of scientific induction satisfying all the conditions insisted upon by modern philosophy of science” (Whitehead, 178). I. B. Cohen has in a case-study shown how Aristotle's physics is the physics of “common sense” and arrives at principles of restricted adequacy for falling bodies in a resistant medium (Cohen, 26–27). Even progressive textbooks in physics and mechanics have begun to teach how Aristotle explained Nature in terms of what is, intuitively and superficially taken, nearest to man, viz., his own experience subjectively considered as purposive behaviour (Holten, 17 ff).
Blake, 15–17, cited p. 17.
Blake, 7.
Dialogues, Stillman Drake ed. (1957, Berkeley), 256.
Ibid., 19, 31.
The Assayer, tr. Stillman Drake, inDiscoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957, New York), 237–238.
For a discussion see James A. Weisheipl, “Galileo and his Precursors”, McMullin ed.,Galileo, Man of Science (1967, New York), 85–97.
Cited in Edward W. Strong, “Metaphysics and Scientific Method in Galileo's Work”, McMullin ed.,Galileo, Man of Science, 357.
Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World, tr. Stillman Drake (1953, Berkeley), 208. Galileo at first as well as many of his predecessors erred in expressing as the law of fall that the increase in velocity of a falling body is proportional to distance. It was not until 1632 that Galileo gave the correct version, that the increase is proportional to time of fall, and the distance travelled proportional to the square of the time. Koyré thinks this is due to the difficulty early investigators had to think “in time” — it was habitual to imagine (see) bodies “in space”. See Marx W. Wartofsky,Conceptual Foundations of Scientific Thought (New York, 1968), 452–453.
Huygens, appendix to letter to P. Bayle, 25 Feb., 1693,O.C., X, 403.
E. J. Dijksterhuis, Christiaan Huygens, bij de voltooing van zijn Oeuvres Completes,Haarlemse Voordrachten, 10 (1951), 21–22.
as note 3, p. 13, 403.
ibid., 406.
C. A. Crommelin, Spinoza's natuurwetenschapplijk denken,Medel. v. het Spinzahuis, 6 (Leiden, 1939).
Mech 17th C, 280.
O. C., XXII, 710.
O. C., XIX, 461.
O. C., XXI, 446.
O. C., XVI, 150.
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Elzinga, A. Huygens' theory of research and descartes' theory of knowledge I. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 2, 174–194 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01803364
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01803364