Positivist conceptions of induction and the rejection of classificatory methods in psychological research

Don Schopflocher

Donald Kuiken

Wild

pp. 47-56

in: Charles W. Tolman (ed), Positivism in psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1992

Abstract

Francis Bacon's (1620/1878) conception of inductive methods was in some ways disturbingly naive. He suggested that if a sufficient number of scholars committed themselves to experimental investigation as he prescribed, the basic task of science—including moral science—could be accomplished in a few decades. Although conceptions of experimentation have changed considerably since the seventeenth century, there remains a touch of Baconian optimism in psychologists' contemporary commitment to experimental studies.

Cited authors

Bacon Francis