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Preface to Isaac Newton's Experimental Astronomy
(2024) Hattiangadi, Jagdish
I showed earlier how Francis Bacon gave practical, skeptical recipes for discovering new knowledge. His recipes were based on a solution to Plato's problem of showing how the Socratic elenchus could provide us with an affirmative understanding of general principles. In this Preface, a summary of the new "experimental" method is given. I summarize in this Preface how Isaac Newton's experimental philosophy led him to his System of the World, a central theme of the chapters to follow. However, this method could not be stated explicitly later, though many successfully applied it. His model was widely emulated, engendering many successful models. Together, they gave rise to a neglected phenomenon I call "the growing density of scientific knowledge." The mystery of why the method of science could no longer be explicitly stated has its gist set out in the Preface.