Hypotheses and Agreement: For a Pragmatic and Dynamic Approach to Hypotheses as Conditional Syntheses

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of hypotheses in science from a dynamic and pragmatic approach. In this sense, we argue that the notion of hypothesis corresponds to the performative act of generating a conditional relation between elements of knowledge. For this purpose, we appeal to the notion of demonstration by hypothesis that Aristotle outlines in his Prior Analytics. On the latter, Aristoteles outlines the notions of agreement, substitution, and relation between two demonstrations. Thus,we circumscribe the generation of hypotheses to the field of dialectical interactions in which human beings and their actions as argumentative agents with purposes and ends play a central role. And at the same time, we distance ourselves from the static identification between hypotheses and propositions.