Discovery and Rule-Books

Abstract

Discovery, we are often told, is a nonrational affair. Some who speak this way follow Hans Reichenbach in distinguishing the context of discovery from that of justification. In the former, the idea of a new hypothesis first occurs to the scientist. In the latter, the scientist attempts to test an hypothesis that has already occurred to him. The context of justification is, or is supposed to be, teeming with rationality. Not the context of discovery. Instead of being characterized as a context in which logical inferences occur, we are told that it is one permeated with inspiration, hunch, and conjecture. These may have causes deep in the human psyche, but they are not logical inferences of the sort philosophers and logicians can study.