Inductive Exemplification in Real and Thought Experiments

The New Experimentalism, given its opposition between experimental practices and fundamental theories, had to address the problem of the relationship be­tween the particularity of the former and the generality of the latter. Other au­thors (from Charles A. Baylis and Nelson Goodman to Catherine Elgin) used the concept of exemplification to clarify the relationship between particular and universal/general concepts or laws. But one may ask whether, while hinting at a point of view that can illuminate new aspects of the problem, they have not ultimately left the problem itself unresolved. This article, on the basis of consid­erations developed elsewhere and following a suggestion found in Aristotle, pro­poses to link the concept of exemplification to the problem of induction and ab­duction, both understood here as a multiplicity of methodical procedures aimed at establishing a cognitive relationship between the reproducibility of scientific concepts or laws and the concreteness, locality, and situated character of experi­mental practices. A necessary prerequisite for the solution of the problem raised by this relationship is the distinction between two senses — one reflexive-tran­scendental, the other genetic-methodological — of the discovery/justification pair of concepts. This will shed light, at the same time, on the long-standing problem of induction and on the problem of the relationship between the uni­versality of scientific laws and the always local and situated character of exper­imental practices. The last part of the article shows how these conclusions also apply to thought experiments, briefly discussing John Norton's account. Keywords: Exemplification; Induction; Inductive Exemplification; Norton's Argu­mentative View; Popper's criticism of induction; Thought Experiment