Hypothesis
A supposition put forward as a starting point for reasoning or to be tested by experiment.
Works to read
- Scientific and Mathematical Treatises by Blaise Pascal, 1647-1654 · Great Books
- Opticks by Isaac Newton, 1704 · Great Books
- Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, 1781 (revised 1787) · Great Books
- Experiments in Plant Hybridisation (in Bateson's Mendel's Principles of Heredity) by Gregor Mendel; William Bateson, 1866
- A History of Philosophy, Vol. V: Hobbes to Hume by Frederick Copleston, 1959
Passages
From the texts
Suppose a body to move in an hyperbola; it is required to find the law of the centripetal force tending to the focus of that figure.
— Isaac Newton, Principia
It is an error to suppose that judgements are to be defined as contrary in virtue of the fact that they have contrary subjects; for the judgement concerning a good thing, that it is good, and that concerning a bad thing, that it is bad, may be one and the same, and whether they are so or not, they both represent the truth.
— Aristotle, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations
Verified quotations
On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
— William James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
Hypothesis is where we find some very curious circumstance, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition.
— Charles Sanders Peirce, Illustrations of the Logic of Science
But with no staff economists, no experts schooled in the "efficient-capital-market hypothesis," no ability to test the validity of empirical market studies, we are not well equipped to embrace novel constructions of a statute based on contemporary microeconomic theory.
— Supreme Court of the United States, Basic Inc. v. Levinson
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: hypothesis, suppose, supposition. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.