Original Articles

Whewell, Necessity and The Inductive Sciences: A Philosophical-Systematic Survey

Published in: South African Journal of Philosophy
Volume 28 , issue 4 , 2009 , pages: 333–358

DOI: 10.4314/sajpem.v28i4.52978

Author(s): Steffen Ducheyne Ghent University Centre for Logics and Philosophy of Science, Belgium

Abstract

In this paper Whewell’s concept of necessity is scrutinized and its historical development is outlined (ca. 1833–1860). Particular attention will be paid to how Whewell interpreted the laws of the inductive sciences as being necessary since the laws of nature are concretizations of the Fundamental Ideas which can be partially described by Axioms.

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