Whewell portrait

William Whewell b. May 24, 1794 - d. March 6, 1866

  • Born

  • Remarks in "Mechanical Euclid"

    Whewell first brings his ideas on the philosophy of Science to the public when he adds “Remarks of the Logic of Induction” to his book “Mechanic Euclid”. He explains, "That induction requires both an idea provide by the mind and facts provided by the world" (Snyder 40). He believes that ideas and sensations are needed to gain knowledge. sensations help gain knowledge but the ideas are how we connect sensations. According to Whewell ideas are what builds each science (Snyder 41).
  • Published "History of the Inductive Sciences"

    Published "History of the Inductive Sciences"
    Whewell brings up his belief of both ideas and facts (sensations) being part of science. Whewell also mentions in this book that with science there is no such thing as an accident, everything is carefully prepared before a discovery (Snyder 30). He also talks about Secondary Mechanical Sciences, which is how we sense the world such as optics and acoustics (Snyder 33).
  • Published "On Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences"

    Published "On Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences"
    This is where Whewell is able to go into more depth about ideas and sensations (Snyder 41). This is also where he makes headway in taxonomy by coming up with the term “method type” for the process of classification (Witteveen 140).
  • Published "Plurality of Worlds"

    Published "Plurality of Worlds"
    The anonymously published book, where Whewell uses his ideas and sensation philosophy to come up with theory of a temperate zone (more commonly known now as the habitable zone.) His ideas of a temperate zone come from the observations (sensations) made by astronomers (Crowe 440). This book spoke out against the idea of life on other planets and was a driving factor to extinguishing the idea that there could be life on other planets especially in our solar system (Crowe 445).
  • Death