Quantitative realizations of philosophy of science: William Whewell and statistical methods

In this paper, I examine William Whewell’s (1794–1866) ‘Discoverer’s Induction’, and argue that it supplies a strikingly accurate characterization of the logic behind many statistical methods, exploratory data analysis (EDA) in particular. Such methods are additionally well-suited as a point of evaluation of Whewell’s philosophy since the central techniques of EDA were not invented until after Whewell’s death, and so couldn’t have influenced his views. The fact that the quantitative details of some very general methods designed to suggest hypotheses would so closely resemble Whewell’s views of how theories are formed is, I suggest, a strongly positive comment on his views.