Nomothetic Induction Approach

‘Take a leap of faith, take an inductive leap’.
One of the first associations one makes when thinking of the field of Natural Sciences, are the ‘laws of nature’. Mathematical equations are an example of such laws. The process of how these equations came to be is through the nomothetic approach. This means that the observing scientist is looking to identify regularities in the world, followed by formulating laws and generalizations to describe the regularities that have been detected and then have eventually been derived into laws and generalizations (McAllister, 6). This is called the nomothetic approach. Where one focusses on the general similarities as opposed to the specific uniqueness of phenomena, where one usually takes on the idiographic approach. The nomothetic approach seems like a sensible approach when dealing with the regularities in nature, scientists base their conclusions on empirical evidence, gathered through extensive research. The manner in which scientist interpret the outcomes of their observations and finds is called induction. Induction is a method of deriving

Despite the fact that it always involves taking a leap, there is a way of justifying it. German scientific philosopher Hans Reichenbach is an advocate of the pragmatic justification of induction. Reichenbach clearly depicts: “Either nature is uniform or she is not” (Anwer 252). Professor Mc Allister, who is also in favor of this method of justification explains that we can not be sure the world contains any universal regularities, however if the world does contain regularities, then induction is at least as quick as any other cognitive strategy at identifying these regularities. Inductivism is going to be the quickest at recognizing this. To conclude this matter one could say that if there is any uniformity, induction will be successful, if there is is no uniformity, then no method at all, will be