Twenty-Seven Answers to One Question

In his Novum Organum, F. Bacon put forward the idea of “prerogative instances” as a means of shortening the paths of putting forward and testing hypotheses. Bacon’s “prerogative instances” are considered in the research as a possible answer to J.S. Mill’s question about why in some cases one example is enough for complete induction, while in other cases even myriads of mutually agreeing examples are not enough for a reliable conclusion. It is shown how the assessment of “prerogative instances” and F. Bacon’s theory of induction itself changed among historians of philosophy and science throughout the 19th-20th centuries. The classification of “prerogative instances” carried out by F. Bacon is analyzed, and its weak points are identified. The author’s classification of “prerogative instances” based on F. Bacon’s ideas is proposed, and the possibility and prospects of alternative approaches to such classification are assessed. The place of “prerogative instances” in F. Bacon’s general theory of induction is considered. It is shown that some of them can be used before compiling the “tables of presence”, “tables of absence” and “tables of degrees” that form the basis of F. Bacon’s method of eliminative induction, another part should be placed in these tables, and the third part can be applied after the corresponding hypotheses have been put forward on the basis of the tables. A distinction is made between induction as a derivation of universal hypotheses from singular premises and induction as a method of empirical research that allows one to put forward and test generalizing hypotheses on the basis of individual facts. It is noted that the fair criticism of induction as an unreliable conclusion was unjustifiably transferred to induction as a method in the post-positivist philosophy of science of the 20th century. The possibility of using “prerogative instances” as heuristic methods of putting forward and testing hypotheses, the effectiveness of which depends on the adopted metaphysical assumptions, is indicated in those modern theories of induction that reject the idea of constructing a universal inductive method.