Abstract

We cannot accept wholly Comte's substantive claim that discovery is a purely non-verbal process. Still, Comte has given us a useful model. The analysis of case studies from the history of scientific method and discovery should serve to illustrate important operations of the human mind. Thus, any philosophy of mind must incorporate and account for such operations. ;Comte was indebted to Kant in his search for the necessary conditions for knowledge. Unlike Kant, Comte starts with an analysis of our methods for analyzing mental imagery and then reasons back to what our mental functions must be like in order for us to be able to use such methods. ;The debate still rages concerning whether or not there exists a logic of discovery. Though contemporary work has treated this issue there is much to be learned by studying the issue as it arose in the past. ;Auguste Comte believed that scientific discovery is a non-verbal process which involves the analysis and comparison of mental imagery. He believed this is shown through an analysis of the historical development of science. However, the philosopher ought not to be limited to doing the philosophical history of science. There is a need for a theory of the nature of the human mind which is capable of explaining the intellectual activity revealed by scientific history