Abstract
Introduction: Adherents of traditional philosophy of science supported the distinction between context of discovery and context of justification, making the latter the only actual subject of philosophical inquiry. Many scientists did not follow this conclusion. Some of them tried to construct normative theory of scientific discovery. Due to application of advanced computing machines, they endeavoured constructing a computer programme as it would be able to generate scientific discoveries. It led to the emergence of separate scientific discipline – a theory of machine discovery that was based on the work of psychology of problem solving as well as artificial intelligence. The goal of the paper is to present argumentation in favour of the view that none of the attempts of reducing scientific inquiry to computation can succeed due to logical purposes. The paper shows the historical process that led to the distinction of context of discovery and context of justification as well as indicates the scientists and trends that objected such a distinction. Subsequently, the paper presents the theory of machine discovery, which authors tried to construct a computer program that would generate scientific discoveries. Last part of the material is dedicated to logical arguments that make such attempts unable to succeed. The inquiry showed that there are logical arguments to state that the algorythmization of scientific discovery is not possible. The paper delivers argumentation, derived from the nature of machine cognition that makes such attempts impossible to succeed. Machine cognition is deductive, without reference to any subject, has no content and can be reduced to the data given to the input of the system. While using the computers in scientific inquiry seems to be a reasonable decision, because of the possibility of analysing great sets of data what opens new possibilities to scientists, the computers will never be a substitute for human beings. Regardless of the technical development, the nature of machine cognition makes scientific discovery dependent on human intervention. All attempts of reducing discovery to computing procedure cannot, necessarily, succeed.
Keywords: philosophy of science, scientific discovery, research, cognitive science, algorythmization, artificial intelligence, machine learning
Type of article: review article