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Newton called his method the '''experimental philosophy''', because theories about the behavior of empirical objects can only be refuted via experimental procedures.[[CiteRef::Smith (2002)]] The generality of Newton's rejection of hypotheses in natural philosophy is unclear since, in the ''Opticks'' he did discuss hypotheses about light, and did raise the possibility of an invisible aether responsible for gravitational attraction. [[CiteRef::Janiak (2016) pp. 25-26]] Newton called his methodology the '''experimental philosophy''', because theories about the behavior of empirical objects can only be refuted via experimental procedures.[[CiteRef::Smith (2002)]] Newton He expressed the its core beliefs from which he derived his method in a set of four “rules for the study of natural philosophy,” which he stated in book III of The ''Principia'' as follows:
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<blockquote>I have not as yet been able to deduce from phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity, 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 experimental philosophy, propositions are deduced from the phenomena and are made general by induction. The impenetrability, mobility, and impetus of bodies and the laws of motion and law of gravity have been found by this method. And it is enough that gravity should really exist and should act according to the laws that we have set forth and should suffice for all the motions of the heavenly bodies and of our sea.[[CiteRef::Newton (1999)| p. 276]]</blockquote>
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Historical research indicates that the scientific community did not use Newton's own criteria in evaluating his work. Newton's theories did not become accepted outside of England until after its prediction of the oblate spheroid shape of the Earth was confirmed by expeditions to Lapland and Peru. Thus, Newton's theories became accepted via a '''hypothetico-deductive method''' based on confirmed novel predictions that distinguished it from the rival Cartesian vortices, rather than via Newton's own '''inductive methodology'''. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 48-49]][[CiteRef::Terrall (1992)]][[CiteRef::McMullin (2001)]] According to McMullin, Newton's methodology ran contrary to the consensus that had been emerging among natural philosophers of his time, in favor of hypothesis. [[CiteRef::McMullin (2001)]] Christiaan Huygens and John Locke are known to have taken the experimental philosophy, if not necessarily the full content of Newton’s theories, to heart.[[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]]
|Criticism=To proponents of the mechanical philosophy, it was methodologically important that all motion in the universe be given a cause involving direct physical contact, even if this amounted to a larger gap between theory and experimental evidence. Many of Newton's contemporaries, in particular Leibniz and Huygens, strongly objected to the idea that forces could act at a distance. Leibniz regarded the theory of gravitation as a regression in natural philosophy and accused Newton of treating gravity as an 'occult quality' beyond philosophical understanding. John Locke and David Hume were more favorable to Newton's gravitational force and his experimental philosophy. The topic was the subject of intense debate in the early eighteenth century. [[CiteRef::Janiak (2016) pp. 27-28]]
