Module 1 : Science as Culture Social Context of the Production of Scientific Knowledge

Lecture 1 : Methods of Science: Issues and Perspectives


Inductivism looked upon certainty and breadth as the hallmarks of scientific knowledge. That means science must aim at knowledge which is definite, on the one hand, and on the other, broad in the sense that it must encompass more and more of the world we seek to know. The search for certain or definite knowledge led inductivists to legislate that science must confine itself to observations since it is only our observations that we can be certain. In other words, science, according to inductivists, must not make any reference to anything unobservable. The means of realizing knowledge that is broad Bacon found in the principle of induction which allows us to go from particular observations to generalizations. Thus, according to inductivists, science must aim at arriving at, with the help of the principle of induction, generalizations which cryptically contain knowledge of indefinite number of as yet unmade observations. We first collect observational data without recourse to any theory. We then put forward a tentative generalization which we verify. Once verified, the tentative generalization becomes a law enabling us to go from a limited number of already made observations. The aim of science is to arrive at laws, i.e. established inductive generalizations which are only cryptic statements regarding as yet unmade observations. By accumulating such established inductive generalizations, inductivists claimed, we will have at our disposal an enormous amount of observations the totality of which constitutes reality. Science, according to the inductivist theory, thus begins with observations, remains at the level of observations and ends with observations............................