Isaac Newton and the Theorizing Process.
Reasoning in Philosophy. These rules are very important in understanding the evolution of the theorizing process in science. The rules are:
Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
Newton also listed a number of mostly astronomical data and named them the Phenomena. It was on these Phenomena that he depended in order to draw inferences later in the book. The third part thus laid down the basic principle or method that is used to form theories, by clearly defining the roles of scientific reasoning and experimentation in the process. The law of universal gravitation states that any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This was the genius of Newton in seeing the same underlying force that causes all bodies in the universe, big or small, to attract each other. Using his new theory, he was able to predict with considerable accuracy the motion of planets, as well as the tiniest objects known to man in those days.
He himself was not fully comfortable, however, with the force of gravity. In a letter, he wrote ‘That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one another, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it.’ He was never able to assign a cause behind the existence of gravity.
Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
Newton also listed a number of mostly astronomical data and named them the Phenomena. It was on these Phenomena that he depended in order to draw inferences later in the book. The third part thus laid down the basic principle or method that is used to form theories, by clearly defining the roles of scientific reasoning and experimentation in the process. The law of universal gravitation states that any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This was the genius of Newton in seeing the same underlying force that causes all bodies in the universe, big or small, to attract each other. Using his new theory, he was able to predict with considerable accuracy the motion of planets, as well as the tiniest objects known to man in those days.
He himself was not fully comfortable, however, with the force of gravity. In a letter, he wrote ‘That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one another, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it.’ He was never able to assign a cause behind the existence of gravity.
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