Ars inveniendi

The ars inveniendi (from the Latin ars “art” and invenire “to invent”) - in analogy to other arts taught in Roman antiquity - is the art of discovery and argumentation .

It is to be understood as a supplement to the ars quaerendi (from the Latin quaerere "to ask") - the art of inquiring searching, which is the beginning of every research .

The word creation ars inveniendi probably goes back to the philosopher and jurist Cicero (106–43 BC), who sees it as the art of finding rhetorical arguments. In contrast to it, Cicero, who was a gifted rhetorician , puts the ars iudicandi (from the Latin iudicare "to judge"), which deals with the evaluation and argumentative structure of a speech - based on the thoughts of Aristotle .

Raimundus Lullus (1235–1316) tried to establish a theory of invention with the help of a thinking machine in the form of concentrically rotating discs.

On the other hand, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) defined the ars inveniendi as a scientific process for discovering new truths within a subject.

Christian Wolff (1679–1754) defines the ars inveniendi as the discovery of previously unknown truths and sees them linked to a logic of language. In contrast to today's heuristics , however, he emphasizes, in addition to the view of innovations, also relying on what has been handed down .