The provocative paper by John Forrester ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ (1996) opened up the question of case thinking as a separate mode of reasoning in the sciences. Case-based reasoning is certainly endemic across a number of sciences, but it has looked different according to where it has been found. This article investigates this mode of science – namely thinking in cases – by questioning the different interpretations of ‘If p?’ and exploring the different interpretative responses of what follows in ‘Then What?’. The aim is to characterize how ‘reasoning in, within, with, and from cases’ forms a mode of scientific investigation for single cases, for runs of cases, and for comparative cases, drawing on materials from a range of different fields in which case-based reasoning appears.

中文翻译：

---

'如果 p? 然后呢？在案例中、案例中和案例中思考

约翰·福雷斯特 (John Forrester) 的煽动性论文“如果 p，那又怎样？Thinking in Cases（1996 年）提出了案例思考作为科学中一种独立的推理模式的问题。基于案例的推理肯定在许多科学中流行，但根据发现地点的不同，它看起来有所不同。本文通过质疑“If p?”的不同解释来研究这种科学模式——即案例思考。并探索对“然后是什么？”中内容的不同解释性反应。目的是描述“在案例中、案例中、案例中和案例中推理”如何形成针对单个案例、案例运行和比较案例的科学调查模式，并利用来自不同领域的材料，在这种情况下基于的推理出现。