Hypotheses non fingo

Hypotheses non fingo (Latin for "I feign no hypotheses," "I frame no hypotheses," or "I contrive no hypotheses") is a famous phrase used by Isaac Newton in an essay, General Scholium, which was appended to the second (1713) edition of the Principia.

Here is a modern translation (published 1999) of the passage containing this famous remark:

I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.^[1]

The nineteenth century philosopher of science, William Whewell, qualified this statement, as, he said, "it was by such a use of hypotheses, that both Newton himself and Kepler, on whose discoveries those of Newton were based, made their discoveries".

"What is requisite is, that the hypotheses should be close to the facts, and not connected with them by other arbitrary and untried facts; and that the philosopher should be ready to resign it as soon as the facts refuse to confirm it."^[2]

References

↑ Isaac Newton (1726). Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, General Scholium. Third edition, page 943 of I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman's 1999 translation, University of California Press ISBN 0-520-08817-4, 974 pages.
↑ Whewell, William (1840). The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. London. p. 438.

Isaac Newton

Publications	De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas (1669, published 1711) Method of Fluxions (1671) De motu corporum in gyrum (1684) Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) General Scholium (1713) Opticks (1704) The Queries (1704) Arithmetica Universalis (1707)

Other writings	Notes on the Jewish Temple Quaestiones quaedam philosophicae The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)

Newtonianism	Bucket argument Newton's inequalities Newton's law of cooling Newton's law of universal gravitation Post-Newtonian expansion Parameterized post-Newtonian formalism Newton–Cartan theory Schrödinger–Newton equation Gravitational constant Newton's laws of motion Newtonian dynamics Newton's method in optimization Gauss–Newton algorithm Truncated Newton method Newton's rings Newton's theorem about ovals Newton–Pepys problem Newtonian potential Newtonian fluid Classical mechanics Newtonian fluid Corpuscular theory of light Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy Rotating spheres Newton's cannonball Newton–Cotes formulas Newton's method Newton fractal Generalized Gauss–Newton method Newton's identities Newton polynomial Newton's theorem of revolving orbits Newton–Euler equations Newton number Kissing number problem Power number Solar mass Dynamics Absolute time and space Finite difference Table of Newtonian series Impact depth Structural coloration Inertia

Life	Cranbury Park Woolsthorpe Manor Early life of Isaac Newton Later life of Isaac Newton Religious views of Isaac Newton Isaac Newton's occult studies The Mysteryes of Nature and Art Scientific revolution Copernican Revolution

Friends and family	Catherine Barton John Conduitt William Clarke Benjamin Pulleyn William Stukeley William Jones Isaac Barrow Abraham de Moivre John Keill

Discoveries and inventions	Calculus Newton disc Newton polygon Newton–Okounkov body Newton's reflector Newtonian telescope Newton scale Newton's metal Newton's cradle Sextant

Phrases	"Hypotheses non fingo" "Standing on the shoulders of giants"

Theory expansions	Kepler's laws of planetary motion Problem of Apollonius

Related	Writing of Principia Mathematica Newton (Blake) List of things named after Isaac Newton Newton (unit) Isaac Newton in popular culture Elements of the Philosophy of Newton Isaac Newton S/O Philipose

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Hypotheses non fingo

See also

References