Abstract

In this article, I'd like to show that the methods used in analytic philosophy - thanks to the tools of logic and semantics - can be brought closer to the natural sciences. I will introduce the notion of modality, which can be characterized in two ways: on the one hand, modal categories (necessary/contingent) inherited from Aristotle's logic, and on the other, epistemic categories (a priori/empirical). In this way, I will argue that the method used in analytic philosophy is similar to the scientific method insofar as it contains a priori tools, such as logic or referential semantics. These tools are fundamental to the explanation of theoretical identifications in the natural sciences, which are fundamentally built on the experience that biologists or chemists have of the in order to know it. Although I'll be arguing that scientific discoveries are based on experience of the world, I'll be stressing the vital importance of theoretical tools such as reasoning, which is a priori.