Timothy E. Eastman

Complementary Frameworks of Scientific Inquiry: Hypothetico-Deductive, Hypothetico-Inductive, and Observational-Inductive

The 20th century philosophy of science began on a positivistic note. Its focal point was scientific explanation and the hypothetico-deductive (HD) framework of explanation was proposed as the standard of what is meant by “science.” HD framework, its inductive and statistical variants, and other logic-based approaches to modeling scientific explanation were developed long before the dawn of the information age. Since that time, the volume of observational data and power of high performance computing have increased by several orders of magnitude and reshaped the practice and concept of science, and indeed, the philosophy of science. A new observational-inductive (OI) framework for scientific research is emerging due to recent developments in sensors, data systems, computers, and knowledge discovery techniques. We examine the nature of these changes and their impact on the question of what is meant by “science” after discussing five examples of the OI framework, and conclude that the HD and OI frameworks are complementary and synergistic.

Our Cosmos, from Substance to Process

Philosophies of nature over the past three centuries have gone through three distinct phases, beginning with classical views and now evolving into a process view at the dawn of the 21st century. These phases derive from a complex weaving of two frameworks of physics since Newtons time [classical, modern] with two principal metaphysical frameworks[substance, event]. Problematic fin de siècle claims at the end of both the 19th and 20th centuries appear to have a common root in substance metaphysics and part/whole reductionism. Going beyond such simplistic forms of modernism requires a more integrated, ecological worldview, or process view of nature.

The Observational‐Inductive Framework for Science

A new observational‐inductive framework for science is emerging due to recent developments in sensors, data systems, computers and knowledge discovery techniques. This new framework complements the standard hypothetical‐deductive model that has sometimes been held up as the standard of what is meant by “science.” The hypothetical‐deductive/inductive schemas were developed before the massive growth (by orders of magnitude) in the volume of observational data and power of high performance computing. The strength of the observational‐inductive model is its firm foundation on both of these revolutionary developments in the history of science.

Introduction: The Role of Process Metaphysics in Our World of Science

The modern sciences have developed from philosophy, starting with physics in the 17th century. This emancipation of the sciences has been a huge success: the results of scientific research have changed the face of the Earth. The success of the sciences is due to specialization and the development of unique methodologies that divide the world into well-defined “domains of research” and even more subdomains that allow for a clear formulation of narrow problems and the application of scientific methods including observation, hypothesis formation, and testing. But: “This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a groove. Each profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. . . . The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great, particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of reason is weakened. The leading intellects lack balance. They see this set of circumstances, or that set; but not both sets together. . . . The whole is lost in one of its aspects” (Whitehead, 1967a, p. 197). Today no scientist or technologist can claim to know all research results in his own sub-domain, let alone in other disciplines. Since these warning words of Whitehead’s from his book Science and the Modern World, published in 1925, the progress of the sciences has dramatically increased. The physicist and historian of science Derek J. de Sola Price has shown in his book Little Science–Big Science (1963) that—based on scientific publications—between 1650 and 1950 the sciences grew exponentially, doubling each 15 years. Marx and Gramm (2002), from the center of information exchange at the chemical-physical-technological section of the Max-Planck-Institut on dense matter research in Stuttgart, Germany, draw attention to the following facts: While in the 1950s in scientific and technological journals 2,000 articles were published per workday; this number has increased by a factor ten so that today

Introduction: Process Thought, Science, and Philosophy

The dramatic success of science since the 17th century, documented in our first special issue introduction (Riffert and Eastman, 2008), led to conditions that shifted the mantle of authority from religion to science, a shift that culminated with the achievements of Darwin and Einstein. This same period witnessed the development of the classical view of nature, which incorporates a metaphysical framework that continues to have substantial influence as shown by its coupling with modern physics in the standard view of nature dominant throughout most of the 20th century (Eastman, 2008). Early in this overall intellectual transition, religion and philosophy still maintained the upper hand for issues about the nature of being (ontology) and remained central for questions about problems of knowledge (epistemology). However, even this more limited role for philosophy transitioned to roughly complete hegemony for science with respect to both epistemological and ontological issues by the late 20th century. The unifying theme of this special issue is the call for a new balance between these extremes of either complete hegemony of philosophy or of science for central issues in epistemology and ontology. This new balance requires the avoidance of making claims for the “new physics” that effectively result in practicing metaphysics surreptitiously without the logical and philosophical constraints discussed by Epperson (this issue). Similarly, it calls for those on the side of religion or of philosophy to similarly avoid hegemonic claims of authority, and to recognize that the most genuine authority needs to be ongoing grounding in observation and experience. In describing abstract speculative thought, Whitehead drew on

Foundations of anticipatory logic in biology and physics

Recent advances in modern physics and biology reveal several scenarios in which top-down effects (Ellis, 2016) and anticipatory systems (Rosen, 1980) indicate processes at work enabling active modeling and inference such that anticipated effects project onto potential causes. We extrapolate a broad landscape of anticipatory systems in the natural sciences extending to computational neuroscience of perception in the capacity of Bayesian inferential models of predictive processing. This line of reasoning also comes with philosophical foundations, which we develop in terms of counterfactual reasoning and possibility space, Whiteheads process thought, and correlations with Eastern wisdom traditions.

Physics and speculative philosophy : potentiality in modern science

This work grapples with key issues of reality (both potentiality and actuality), scale (both local and global), context (scale and approximation, plus asymmetry/symmetry), and process (both emergence and actual events). Building on a convergence of progress in physics, emergence research, and process thought, this work highlights a new Relational Realism, which enables intuitive, yet effective, solutions to key problems in modern science.