Abstract:

There have been depth discussions on what kind of scientific method should be used to reach strong and reliable knowledge. Because the scientific method(s) that scientists have followed by consensus in order to understand and explain the universe has been seen important to separate science from pseudo science. In connection with this, one of the philosophers who put forward a remarkable approach to which path to follow in scientific research was John Stuart Mill. The purpose of this article is to discuss Mill’s views on the scientific method in detail. Although Mill has come to the fore in the field of political philosophy, he is a thinker who has worked in different disciplines. Mill, who can be claimed to have an eclectic understanding that melts empiricism, naturalism, romanticism, liberalism and utilitarianism in one pot, puts induction instead of deduction, arguing that although it constitutes the essence of logical proof, it does not provide any new knowledge. Mill, who starts the thinking process with experience and continues by bringing together the knowledge provided by experience, considers deduction invalid because it is not based on experiment and observation. However, induction, on which logical functioning is based, provides the explanation of regularity and causality in nature, and obtaining and proving general propositions. In this article, John Stuart Mill’s understanding of scientific method that prioritizes induction will be tried to be examined. It will be pointed out how important are the ideas related to epistemology, as well as the ideas that the thinker has presented impressively in other fields.