| Caption | The stages of the cognitive process (the “scientific method”). See Table 1. The morphological stage M applied to the observational database (Explanandum), is followed by the “incoding” or parametrization stage C/P and by the choice of a rationale or of the working hypotheses (stage R). The stages C/P and R unavoidably imply an intrinsic arbitrariness (hence, the different shading in this sketch). The next step is the inductive stage I followed by the deductive stage D. Different checks can now be carried out. On one side, one can “forecast” some features of the “system”, and make reference a new to the original observations, in order to check whether the facts “forecasted” by deduction correspond to what actually occurred. On the other hand, it is possible to carry out a statistical search for a possible coincidence (stage S). When all such checks have been carried out, the final result is a set composed of either none, or just one, or several, possible explanation models (Explanans), here called a, b, etc. See text. |
