Mary Hesse Quotes
Mary Brenda Hesse was a British philosopher of science and one of the first women to hold a senior chair in the philosophy of science in the United Kingdom. After early studies in mathematics and electromagnetism, she turned to philosophy of science and produced influential analyses of the role of models, metaphors, and analogies in scientific reasoning. The quotes below are attributed to Mary Hesse, organized by topic.
Browse Mary Hesse by topic
Mary Hesse on Knowledge
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Attributed to Mary Hesse:
“Models are essential to scientific theorizing.”
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Attributed to Mary Hesse:
“All scientific knowledge is metaphorical at the deepest level.”
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Attributed to Mary Hesse:
“Analogy is the engine of theoretical progress.”
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Attributed to Mary Hesse:
“Inference in science is always defeasible, always open to revision.”
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“A theory in its scientific context is not a static museum piece, but is always being extended and modified to account for new phenomena.”
Mary Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science, 1966. p. 4 ; Mary Hesse is quoting here Norman Robert Campbell ' s Physics from 1920. -
“Mary Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science, 1966. p. 4 ; Mary Hesse is quoting here Norman Robert Campbell ' s Physics from 1920.”
A theory in its scientific context is not a static museum piece, but is always being extended and modified to account for new phenomena. -
“Mary B. Hesse. Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science, 1980. p. VII”
These three assumptions between them constitute a picture of science and the world somewhat as follows : there is an external world which can in principle be exhaustively described in scientific language. The scientist, as both observer and language-user, can capture the external facts of the world in prepositions that are true if they correspond to the facts and false if they do not. Science is i -
“It could plausibly be argued that far from Christian theology having hampered the study of nature for fifteen hundred years , it was Greek corruptions of biblical Christianity which had hampered it , and the attitude to nature.”
p. 40 -
“This of course has always been the method of empirical science , which has been suspicious of deductive argumentation unchecked by reference to experiment; but in a more general sense, and outside the practice of science itself, scientists have sometimes been the greatest offenders in adhering to dogmatic ideas against all the evidence , especially when they have tended to limit 'experience' to laboratory experiment.”
p 89.
Mary Hesse on Nature
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“One of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself... A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own development.”
Mary Hesse, "Operational definition and analogy in physical theories." Brit. J. Phil. Sci. , v. 2, p. 281-294, 1952. p. 291 -
“One of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself... A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own de”
Mary Hesse, "Operational definition and analogy in physical theories." Brit. J. Phil. Sci. , v. 2, p. 281-294, 1952. p. 291
Mary Hesse on Truth
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Attributed to Mary Hesse:
“Theories are not mere instruments; they are claims about the world.”