Followers
The English physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82) was one of the earliest scientists to adhere to the scientific empiricism of the Baconian method. His encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646–76) includes numerous examples of Baconian investigative methodology; its preface even paraphrases lines from Bacon's essay On Truth from his 1605 work The Advancement of Learning. Isaac Newton was a noted Baconian—his famous quote hypotheses non fingo (I don't frame hypotheses) was featured in later editions of the Principia, demonstrating his preference for rules that could be demonstrated by formal proof, as opposed to unevidenced hypotheses.
The Baconian method was further developed and promoted by English philosopher John Stuart Mill. His 1843 book, A System of Logic, was an effort to shed further light on issues of causation. In this work, he formulated the five principles of inductive reasoning now known as Mill's methods.
Read more about this topic: Baconian Method
Famous quotes containing the word followers:
“It is only when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers that we comprehend how meaningless followers are.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“All the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to each question to which they can be applied.... This great law is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)