Intentionality and the Problem of Discovery in Scientific Epistemology

Abstract

Discovery was not admitted into the epistemological arena until quite recently owing to its conception as a psychological-not epistemological-enterprise (Reichenbach, 1938/1961). However, more recently it has come to be realized as crucial to the scientific process itself (Royce, 1988; Shames, 1988) and sufficiently structured so that its epistemological status cannot be gainsaid (Lugg, 1985). Its epistemological status thus secure, two things become immediately apparent: first, the epistemology of discovery implicates psychological activity and, second, it is more than merely ironic that intentionality has been rendered unwelcome in the psychological laboratory. After all, intentionality is not merely implicated in scientific creativity, that is to say, in the act of discovery, it also serves to demarcate the various manifestations of science, `taxonomically' conceived (Habermas, 1971, 1989). It is argued that discovery can be understood in terms of a psychofigurational model which is grounded on an understanding of `radical' metaphor which, in turn, is most likely apprehended by those possessed of an `exegetical' aptitude. On this view, discovery is a non-voluntaristic enterprise which implicates unconditional, non-purposive intentionality (Meiland, 1970) in the case of empirical-analytic science. On the other hand, the historical-hermeneutic and critical sciences have a more factitious character which implicates a purposive form of intentionality.