Inductivism

Inductivism is the traditional and still commonplace philosophy of scientific method to develop scientific theories.James Ladyman, ''Understanding Philosophy of Science'' (London & New York: Routledge, 2002), p
51
��58 Inductivism aims to neutrally observe a domain, infer laws from examined cases—hence, inductive reasoning—and thus objectively discover the sole naturally true theory of the observed.John Pheby, ''Methodology and Economics: A Critical Introduction'' (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1988)
p 3

Inductivism's basis is, in sum, "the idea that theories can be derived from, or established on the basis of, facts". Evolving in phases, inductivism's conceptual reign spanned four centuries since Francis Bacon's 1620 proposal of such against Western Europe's prevailing model, scholasticism, which reasoned deductively from preconceived beliefs.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, inductivism succumbed to hypotheticodeductivism—sometimes worded ''deductivism''—as scientific method's realistic ''idealization''. Yet scientific theories as such are now widely attributed to occasions of inference to the best explanation, IBE, which, like scientists' actual methods, are diverse and not formally prescribable.

Philosophers' debates

Inductivist endorsement

Francis Bacon, articulating inductivism in England, is often falsely stereotyped as a naive inductivist. Crudely explained, the "Baconian model" advises to observe nature, propose a modest law that generalizes an observed pattern, confirm it by many observations, venture a modestly broader law, and confirm that, too, by many more observations, while discarding disconfirmed laws. Growing ever broader, the laws never quite exceed observations. Scientists, freed from preconceptions, thus gradually uncover nature's causal and material structure. Newton's theory of universal gravitation—modeling motion as an effect of a ''force''—resembled inductivism's paramount triumph.Larvor, ''Lakatos'' (Routledge, 1998)
p 49

Near 1740, David Hume, in Scotland, identified multiple obstacles to inferring causality from experience. Hume noted the formal illogicality of enumerative induction—unrestricted generalization from particular instances to all instances, and stating a universal law—since humans observe sequences of sensory events, not cause and effect. Perceiving neither logical nor natural necessity or impossibility among events, humans tacitly postulate ''uniformity of nature'', unproved. Later philosophers would select, highlight, and nickname Humean principles—Hume's fork, the problem of induction, and Hume's law—although Hume respected and accepted the empirical sciences as inevitably inductive, after all.

Immanuel Kant, in Germany, alarmed by Hume's seemingly radical empiricism, identified its apparent opposite, rationalism, in Descartes, and sought a middleground. Kant intuited that ''necessity'' exists, indeed, bridging the world in itself to human experience, and that it is the mind, having innate constants that determine ''space'', ''time'', and ''substance'', and thus ensure the empirically correct physical theory's universal truth. Thus shielding Newtonian physics by discarding scientific realism, Kant's view limited science to tracing appearances, mere ''phenomena'', never unveiling external reality, the '' noumena''. Kant's transcendental idealism launched German idealism, a group of speculative metaphysics.

While philosophers widely continued awkward confidence in empirical sciences as inductive, John Stuart Mill, in England, proposed five methods to discern causality, how genuine inductivism purportedly exceeds enumerative induction. In the 1830s, opposing metaphysics, Auguste Comte, in France, explicated positivism, which, unlike Bacon's model, emphasizes ''predictions'', confirming them, and laying scientific laws, irrefutable by theology or metaphysics. Mill, viewing experience as affirming uniformity of nature and thus justifying enumerative induction, endorsed positivism—the first modern philosophy of science—which, also a political philosophy, upheld scientific knowledge as the only genuine knowledge.

Inductivist repudiation

Nearing 1840, William Whewell, in England, deemed the inductive sciences not so simple, and argued for recognition of "superinduction", an explanatory scope or principle invented by the mind to unite facts, but not present ''in'' the facts.Peter Achinstein
"The war on induction: Whewell takes on Newton and Mill (Norton takes on everyone)"
''Philosophy of Science'', 2010 Dec;77(5):728–739. John Stuart Mill rejected Whewell's hypotheticodeductivism as science's method. Whewell believed it to sometimes, upon the evidence, potentially including unlikely signs, including consilience, render scientific theories that are probably true metaphysically. By 1880, C S Peirce, in America, clarified the basis of deductive inference and, although acknowledging induction, proposed a third type of inference. Peirce called it "abduction", now termed ''inference to the best explanation'', IBE.

The logical positivists arose in the 1920s, rebuked metaphysical philosophies, accepted hypotheticodeductivist theory origin, and sought to objectively vet scientific theories—or any statement beyond emotive—as provably false or true as to merely empirical facts and logical relations, a campaign termed verificationism. In its milder variant, Rudolf Carnap tried, but always failed, to find an inductive logic whereby a universal law's truth via observational evidence could be quantified by "degree of confirmation". Karl Popper, asserting a strong hypotheticodeductivism since the 1930s, attacked inductivism and its positivist variants, then in 1963 called enumerative induction "a myth", a deductive inference from a tacit explanatory theory. In 1965, Gilbert Harman explained enumerative induction as a masked IBE.

Thomas Kuhn's 1962 book, a cultural landmark, explains that periods of normal science as but paradigms of science are each overturned by revolutionary science, whose radical paradigm becomes the normal science new. Kuhn's thesis dissolved logical positivism's grip on Western academia, and inductivism fell. Besides Popper and Kuhn, other postpositivist philosophers of science—including Paul Feyerabend, Imre Lakatos, and Larry Laudan—have all but unanimously rejected inductivism. Those who assert scientific realism—which interprets scientific theory as reliably and literally, if approximate, true regarding nature's unobservable aspects—generally attribute new theories to IBE. And yet IBE, which, so far, cannot be trained, lacks particular rules of inference. By the 21st century's turn, inductivism's heir was Bayesianism.Nola & Sankey, ''Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend'' (Kluwer, 2000)
p xi

Scientific methods

From the 17th to the 20th centuries, inductivism was widely conceived as scientific method's ideal.Gauch, ''Scientific Method in Practice'' (Cambridge U P, 2003)
pp 81–
Even at the 21st century's turn, popular presentations of scientific discovery and progress naively, erroneously suggested it.Ron Curtis
"Narrative form and normative force: Baconian story-telling in popular science"
''Social Studies of Science'', 1994 Aug;24(3
419–61
The 20th was the first century producing more scientists than philosopherscientists.Gauch, ''Scientific Method in Practice'' (Cambridge U P, 2003)
pp 71–72
Earlier scientists, "natural philosophers," pondered and debated their philosophies of method. Einstein remarked, "Science without epistemology is—in so far as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled".

Particularly after the 1960s, scientists became unfamiliar with the historical and philosophical underpinnings of their won research programs, and often unfamiliar with logic. Scientists thus often struggle to evaluate and communicate their own work against question or attack or to optimize methods and progress. In any case, during the 20th century, philosophers of science accepted that scientific method's truer ''idealization'' is hypotheticodeductivism, which, especially in its strongest form, Karl Popper's falsificationism, is also termed ''deductivism''.Achinstein, ''Science Rules'' (JHU P, 2004), p
127130

Inductivism

Inductivism infers from observations of similar effects to similar causes, and generalizes unrestrictedly—that is, by enumerative induction—to a universal law.

Extending inductivism, Comtean positivism explicitly aims to oppose metaphysics, shuns imaginative theorizing, emphasizes observation, then making ''predictions'', confirming them, and stating laws.

Logical positivism would accept hypotheticodeductivsm in theory development, but sought an inductive logic to objectively quantity a theory's confirmation by empirical evidence and, additionally, objectively compare rival theories.

Confirmation

Whereas a theory's proof—were such possible—may be termed ''verification''. A theory's support is termed ''confirmation''. But to reason from confirmation to verification—''If A, then B; in fact B, and so A''—is the deductive fallacy called "affirming the consequent."' Inferring the relation ''A to B'' implies the relation ''B to A'' supposes, for instance, "If the lamp is broken, then the room will be dark, and so the room's being dark means the lamp is broken." Even if ''B'' holds, ''A'' could be due to ''X'' or ''Y'' or ''Z'', or to ''XYZ'' combined. Or the sequence ''A'' and then ''B'' could be consequence of ''U''—utterly undetected—whereby ''B'' always trails ''A'' by constant conjunction instead of by causation. Maybe, in fact, ''U'' can cease, disconnecting ''A'' from ''B''.

Disconfirmation

A natural deductive reasoning form is logically valid without postulates and true by simply the principle of nonselfcontradiction. " Denying the consequent" is a natural deduction—''If A, then B; not B, so not A''—whereby one can ''logically'' disconfirm the hypothesis A. Thus, there also is eliminative induction, using this

Determination

At least logically, any phenomenon can host multiple, conflicting explanations—the problem of underdetermination—why inference from data to theory lacks any formal logic, any deductive rules of inference. A counterargument is the difficulty of finding even one empirically adequate theory.Kyle Stanford, "Underdetermination of scientific theory", in Edward N Zalta, ed, ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Online: Winter 2021), sec 3.
"Unconceived alternatives and a new induction"
Still, however difficult to attain one, one after another has been replaced by a radically different theory, the problem of unconceived alternatives. In the meantime, many confirming instances of a theory's predictions can occur even if many of the theory's other predictions are false.

Scientific method cannot ensure that scientists will imagine, much less will or even can perform, inquiries or experiments inviting disconfirmations. Further, any data collection projects a horizon of expectation—how even objective facts, direct observations, are laden with theory—whereby incompatible facts may go unnoticed. And the experimenter's regress permits disconfirmation to be rejected by inferring that unnoticed entities or aspects unexpectedly altered the test conditions. A hypothesis can be tested only conjoined to countless ''auxiliary hypotheses'', mostly neglected until disconfirmation.

Deductivism

In hypotheticodeductivism, the HD model, one introduces some explanation or principle from any source, such as imagination or even a dream, infers logical consequences of it—that is, deductive inferences—and compares those with observations, perhaps experimental. In simple or Whewellian hypotheticodeductivism, one might accept a theory as metaphysically true or probably true if its predictions display certain traits that appear doubtful of a false theory.Achinstein, ''Science Rules'' (JHU P, 2004), p
127130–32

In Popperian hypotheticodeductivism, sometimes called falsificationism, although one aims for a true theory, one's main tests of the theory are efforts to empirically refute it. Falsification's main value on confirmations is when testing risky predictions that seem likeliest to fail. If the theory's bizarre prediction is empirically confirmed, then the theory is strongly ''corroborated'', but, never upheld as metaphysically true, it is granted simply ''verisimilitude'', the appearance of truth and thus a likeness to truth.Achinstein, ''Science Rules'' (JHU P, 2004), p
127130132–33

Inductivist reign

Francis Bacon introduced inductivism—and Isaac Newton soon emulated it—in England of the 17th century. In the 18th century, David Hume, in Scotland, raised scandal by philosophical skepticism at inductivism's rationality, whereas Immanuel Kant, in a German state, deflected Hume's fork, as it were, to shield Newtonian physics as well as philosophical metaphysics, but in the feat implied that science could at best reflect and predict observations, structured by the mind. Kant's metaphysics led Hegel's metaphysics, which Karl Marx transposed from spiritual to material and others gave it a nationalist reading.

Auguste Comte, in France of the early 19th century, opposing metaphysics, introducing positivism as, in essence, refined inductivism ''and'' a political philosophy. The contemporary urgency of the positivists and of the neopositivists—the logical positivists, emerging in Germany and Vienna in World War I's aftermath, and attenuating into the logical empiricists in America and England after World War II—reflected the sociopolitical climate of their own eras. The philosophers perceived dire threats to society via metaphysical theories, which associated with religious, sociopolitical, and thereby social and military conflicts.

Bacon

In 1620 in England, Francis Bacon's treatise ''Novum Organum'' alleged that scholasticism's Aristotelian method of deductive inference via syllogistic logic upon traditional categories was impeding society's progress.Sgarbi, ''Aristotelian Tradition and the Rise of British Empiricism'' (Springer, 2013)
pp 167–68
Admonishing allegedly classic induction for inferring straight from "sense and particulars up to the most general propositions" and then applying the axioms onto new particulars without empirically verifying them, Bacon stated the "true and perfect Induction".Simpson, "Francis Bacon"
§k "Induction"
in ''IEP''. In Bacon's inductivist method, a scientist, until the late 19th century a ''natural philosopher'', ventures an axiom of modest scope, makes many observations, accepts the axiom if it is confirmed and never disconfirmed, then ventures another axiom only modestly broader, collects many more observations, and accepts that axiom, too, only if it is confirmed, never disconfirmed.

In ''Novus Organum'', Bacon uses the term ''hypothesis'' rarely, and usually uses it in pejorative senses, as prevalent in Bacon's time.McMullin, ch 2 in Lindberg & Westman, eds, ''Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution'' (Cambridge U P, 1990)
p 48
Yet ultimately, as applied, Bacon's term ''axiom'' is more similar now to the term ''hypothesis'' than to the term ''law''. By now, a ''law'' are nearer to an ''axiom'', a rule of inference. By the 20th century's close, historians and philosophers of science generally agreed that Bacon's actual counsel was far more balanced than it had long been stereotyped, while some assessment even ventured that Bacon had described falsificationism, presumably as far from inductivism as one can get. In any case, Bacon was not a strict inductivist and included aspects of hypotheticodeductivism, but those aspects of Bacon's model were neglected by others, and the "Baconian model" was regarded as true inductivism—which it mostly was.McMullin, ch 2 in Lindberg & Westman, eds, ''Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution'' (Cambridge U P, 1990)
p 54

In Bacon's estimation, during this repeating process of modest axiomatization confirmed by extensive and minute observations, axioms expand in scope and deepen in penetrance tightly in accord with all the observations. This, Bacon proposed, would open a clear and true view of nature as it exists independently of human preconceptions. Ultimately, the general axioms concerning observables would render matter's unobservable structure and nature's causal mechanisms discernible by humans.McMullin, ch 2 in Lindberg & Westman, eds, ''Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution'' (Cambridge U P, 1990)
p 52
"Bacon rejects atomism because he believes that the corollary doctrines of the vacuum and the unchangeableness of the atoms are false (II, 8). But he asserts the existence of real imperceptible particles and other occult constituents of bodies (such as 'spirit'), upon which the observed properties of things depend (II, 7). But how are these to be known? He asks us not to be 'alarmed at the subtlety of the investigation', because 'the nearer it approaches to simple natures, the easier and plainer will everything become, the business being transferred from the complicated to the simple...as in the case of the letters of the alphabet and the notes of music' (II, 8). And then, somewhat tantalizingly, he adds: 'Inquiries into nature have the best result when they begin with physics and end with mathematics'. Bacon believes that the investigator can 'reduce the non-sensible to the sensible, that is, make manifest things not directly perceptible by means of others which are' (II, 40)". But, as Bacon provides no clear way to frame axioms, let alone develop principles or theoretical constructs universally true, researchers might observe and collect data endlessly. For this vast venture, Bacon's advised precise record keeping and collaboration among researchers—a vision resembling today's research institutes—while the true understanding of nature would permit technological innovation, heralding a New Atlantis.

Newton

Modern science arose against Aristotelian physics. Geocentric were both Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy, which latter was a basis of astrology, a basis of medicine. Nicolaus Copernicus proposed heliocentrism, perhaps to better fit astronomy to Aristotelian physics' fifth element—the universal essence, or quintessence, the aether—whose intrinsic motion, explaining celestial observations, was perpetual, perfect circles. Yet Johannes Kepler modified Copernican orbits to ellipses soon after Galileo Galilei's telescopic observations disputed the Moon's composition by aether, and Galilei's experiments with earthly bodies attacked Aristotelian physics. Galilean principles were subsumed by René Descartes, whose Cartesian physics structured his Cartesian cosmology, modeling heliocentrism and employing ''mechanical philosophy''. Mechanical philosophy's first principle, stated by Descartes, was ''No action at a distance''. Yet it was British chemist Robert Boyle who imparted, here, the term ''mechanical philosophy.'' Boyle sought for chemistry, by way of corpuscularism—a Cartesian hypothesis that matter is particulate but not necessarily atomic—a mechanical basis and thereby a divorce from alchemy.

In 1666, Isaac Newton fled London from the plague. Isolated, he applied rigorous experimentation and mathematics, including development of calculus, and reduced both terrestrial motion and celestial motion—that is, both physics and astronomy—to one theory stating Newton's laws of motion, several corollary principles, and law of universal gravitation, set in a framework of postulated absolute space and absolute time. Newton's unification of celestial and terrestrial phenomena overthrew vestiges of Aristotelian physics, and disconnected physics from chemistry, which each then followed its own course.Stahl ''et al.'', ''Webs of Reality'' (Rutgers U P)
ch 2 "Newtonian revolution"
Newton became the exemplar of the modern scientist, and the Newtonian research program became the modern model of knowledge. Although absolute space, revealed by no experience, and a ''force'' acting at a distance discomforted Newton, he and physicists for some 200 years more would seldom suspect the fictional character of the Newtonian foundation, as they believed not that physical concepts and laws are "free inventions of the human mind", as Einstein in 1933 called them, but could be inferred logically from experience. Supposedly, Newton maintained that toward his gravitational theory, he had "framed" no hypotheses.

Hume

At 1740, Hume sorted truths into two, divergent categories—"relations of ideas" versus "matters of fact and real existence"—as later termed ''Hume's fork''. "Relations of ideas", such as the abstract truths of logic and mathematics, known true without experience of particular instances, offer ''a priori'' knowledge. Yet the quests of empirical science concern "matters of fact and real existence", known true only through experience, thus ''a posteriori'' knowledge. As no number of examined instances logically entails the conformity of unexamined instances, a universal law's unrestricted generalization bears no formally logical basis, but one justifies it by adding the principle uniformity of nature—itself unverified—thus a major induction to justify a minor induction. This apparent obstacle to empirical science was later termed the ''problem of induction''.Chhanda Chakraborti, ''Logic: Informal, Symbolic and Inductive'' (New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India, 2007)
p 381

For Hume, humans experience sequences of events, not cause and effect, by pieces of sensory data whereby similar experiences might exhibit merely constant conjunction—''first an event like A, and always an event like B''—but there is no revelation of causality to reveal either necessity or impossibility. Although Hume apparently enjoyed the scandal that trailed his explanations, Hume did not view them as fatal,Flew, ''Dictionary'' (St Martin's, 1984), "Hume"
p 156
and interpreted enumerative induction to be among the mind's unavoidable customs, required in order for one to live.Gattei, ''Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science'' (Routledge, 2009)
pp 28–29
Rather, Hume sought to counter Copernican displacement of humankind from the Universe's center, and to redirect intellectual attention to human nature as the central point of knowledge.

Hume proceeded with inductivism not only toward enumerative induction but toward unobservable aspects of nature, too. Not demolishing Newton's theory, Hume placed his own philosophy on par with it, then.Schliesser
"Hume's Newtonianism and anti-Newtonianism"
§ intro, in ''SEP''. Though skeptical at common metaphysics or theology, Hume accepted "genuine Theism and Religion" and found a rational person must believe in God to explain the structure of nature and order of the universe.Redman, ''Rise of Political Economy as a Science'' (MIT P, 1997)
p 183
Still, Hume had urged, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take into our hand any volume—of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance—let us ask, ''Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?'' No. ''Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?'' No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion".Flew, ''Dictionary'' (St Martin's, 1984), "Hume's fork"
p 156

Kant

Awakened from "dogmatic slumber" by Hume's work, Immanuel Kant sought to explain how metaphysics is possible. Kant's 1781 book introduced the distinction ''rationalism'', whereby some knowledge results not by '' empiricism'', but instead by "pure reason". Concluding it impossible to know reality in itself, however, Kant discarded the philosopher's task of unveiling appearance to view the '' noumena'', and limited science to organizing the ''phenomena''.Will Durant, ''The Story of Philosophy'' (New York: Pocket Books, 2006)
p 457
/ref> Reasoning that the mind contains categories organizing sense data into the experiences ''substance'', ''space'', and ''time'',Fetzer
"Carl Hempel"
§2.1 "The analytic/synthetic distinction", in ''SEP'': " Empiricism historically stands in opposition to Rationalism, which is represented most prominently by Immanuel Kant, who argued that the mind, in processing experiences, imposes certain properties on whatever we experience, including what he called Forms of Intuition and Categories of Understanding. The Forms of Intuition impose Euclidean spatial relations and Newtonian temporal relations; the Categories of Understanding require objects to be interpreted as substances, and causes as inherently deterministic. Several developments in the history of science, such as the emergence of the theory of relativity and of quantum mechanics, undermine Kant's position by introducing the role of frames of reference and of probabilistic causation. Newer versions are associated with Noam Chomsky and with Jerry Fodor, who have championed the ideas of an innate syntax and innate semantics, respectively (Chomsky 1957; Fodor 1975; Chomsky 1986)". Kant thereby inferred uniformity of nature, after all, in the form of ''a priori'' knowledge.

Kant sorted statements, rather, into two types, ''analytic'' versus ''synthetic''. The analytic, true by their terms' arrangement and meanings, are tautologies, mere logical truths—thus true by necessity—whereas the synthetic apply meanings toward factual states, which are contingent. Yet some synthetic statements, presumably contingent, are necessarily true, because of the mind, Kant argued.McWherter, ''The Problem of Critical Ontology'' (Palgrave, 2013)
p 38
"Since Hume reduces objects of experience to spatiotemporally individuated instances of sensation with no necessary connection to each other (atomistic events), the closest they can come to a causal relation is a regularly repeated succession (constant conjunction), while for Kant the task of transcendental synthesis is to bestow unity and necessary connections upon the atomistic and contingently related contributions of sensibility". Kant's synthetic ''a priori'', then, buttressed both physics—at the time, Newtonian—and metaphysics, too, but discarded scientific realism. This realism regards scientific theories as literally true descriptions of the external world. Kant's transcendental idealism triggered German idealism, including G F W Hegel's absolute idealism.Avineri, "Hegel and nationalism", ''Rev Politics'', 1962;24:461–84
p 461

Positivism

Comte

In the French Revolution's aftermath, fearing Western society's ruin again, Auguste Comte was fed up with metaphysics.Delanty, ''Social Science'' (U Minnesota P, 1997), p
2629
As suggested in 1620 by Francis Bacon, developed by Saint-Simon, and promulgated in the 1830s by his former student Comte, positivism was the first modern philosophy of science.Michel Bourdeau
"Auguste Comte"
in Edward N Zalta, ed, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Winter 2014 edn. Human knowledge had evolved from religion to metaphysics to science, explained Comte, which had flowed from mathematics to astronomy to physics to chemistry to biology to sociology—in that order—describing increasingly intricate domains, all of society's knowledge having become scientific, whereas questions of theology and of metaphysics remained unanswerable, Comte argued. Comte considered, enumerative induction to be reliable, upon the basis of experience available, and asserted that science's proper use is improving human society, not attaining metaphysical truth.

According to Comte, scientific method constrains itself to observations, but frames ''predictions'', confirms these, rather, and states laws—positive statements—irrefutable by theology and by metaphysics, and then lays the laws as foundation for subsequent knowledge.Antony Flew, ''A Dictionary of Philosophy'', 2nd edn (New York: St Martin's Press, 1984), "positivism"
p 283
Later, concluding science insufficient for society, however, Comte launched Religion of Humanity, whose churches, honoring eminent scientists, led worship of humankind. Comte coined the term ''altruism'', and emphasized science's application for humankind's social welfare, which would be revealed by Comte's spearheaded science, sociology. Comte's influence is prominent in Herbert Spencer of England and in Émile Durkheim of France, both establishing modern empirical, functionalist sociology. Influential in the latter 19th century, positivism was often linked to evolutionary theory, yet was eclipsed in the 20th century by neopositivism: logical positivism or logical empiricism.

Mill

J S Mill thought, unlike Comte, that scientific laws were susceptible to recall or revision. And Mill abstained from Comte's Religion of Humanity. Still, regarding experience to justify enumerative induction by having shown, indeed, the uniformity of nature,Wesley C Salmon
"The uniformity of Nature"
''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', 1953 Sep;14(1):39–48, p 39. Mill commended Comte's positivism.Delanty, ''Social Science'' (U Minnesota P, 1997)
pp 26–27
Mill noted that within the empirical sciences, the natural sciences had well surpassed the alleged Baconian model, too simplistic, whereas the human sciences, such ethics and political philosophy, lagged even Baconian scrutiny of immediate experience and enumerative induction.Mill, ''A System of Logic'' (J W Parker, 1843)
p 378
"It was, above all, by pointing out the insufficiency of this rude and loose conception of Induction, that Bacon merited the title so generally awarded to him, of the Founder of the Inductive Philosophy. The value of his own contributions to a more philosophical theory of the subject has certainly been exaggerated. Although (along with some fundamental errors) his writings contain, more or less fully developed, several of the most important principles of the Inductive Method, physical investigation has now far outgrown the Baconian model of Induction. Moral and political inquiry, indeed, are as yet far behind that conception. The current and approved modes of reasoning on these subjects are still of the same vicious description against which Bacon protested: the method almost exclusively employed by those professing to treat such matters inductively, is the very ''inductio per enumerationem simplicem'' which he condemns; and the experience, which we hear so confidently appealed to by all sects, parties, and interests, is still, in his own emphatic words, ''mera palpatio''. Similarly, economists of the 19th century tended to pose explanations ''a priori'', and reject disconfirmation by posing circuitous routes of reasoning to maintain their ''a priori'' laws. In 1843, Mill's ''A System of Logic'' introduced Mill's methods:Flew, ''Dictionary'' (St Martin's, 1984), "Mill's methods"
p 232
the five principles whereby causal laws can be discerned to enhance the empirical sciences as, indeed, the inductive sciences. For Mill, all explanations have the same logical structure, while society can be explained by natural laws.

Social

In the 17th century, England, with Isaac Newton and industrialization, led in science. In the 18th century, France led, particularly in chemistry, as by Antoine Lavoisier