Whewell, Necessity and The Inductive Sciences: A Philosophical-Systematic Survey

Abstract

In this paper Whewell’s concept of necessity is scrutinized and its historical development is outlined (ca. 1833–1860). Particular attention will be paid to how Whewell interpreted the laws of the inductive sciences as being necessary since the laws of nature are concretizations of the Fundamental Ideas which can be partially described by Axioms.