![]() ![]() In current philosophy of science, the distinction between experiment and observation concerns the level of intervention involved. I’ll argue that the distinction in operation here was not the standard one, which turns on level of intervention. It looks like Newton made a distinction between experiment and observation: book 1, contained ‘experiments’, but books 2 and 3, contained ‘observations’. In this post, I’ll have a closer look at Newton’s method of isolating explananda in the Opticks. Viewed in this way, Newton’s phenomena and experiments are different ways of achieving the same thing: isolating explananda. In Principia, Newton isolated his explanatory targets mathematically: from astronomical data, he calculated the motions of bodies with respect to a central focus. In the Opticks, Newton isolated his explanatory targets by making observations under controlled, experimental conditions. In my last post, my analysis of the phenomena in Principia revealed a continuity in Newton’s methodology. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |