Abstract

Duhem’s philosophy of science is difficult to classify according to more contemporary categories like instrumentalism and realism. On the one hand, he presents an account of scientific methodology which renders theories as mere instruments. On the other hand, he acknowledges that theories with particular theoretical virtues (e.g., unity, simplicity, novel predictions) offer a classification of experimental laws that “corresponds to real affinities among the things themselves.” In this paper, we argue that Duhem’s philosophy of science was motivated by an anti-sceptical tendency, according to which we can confidently assert that our theories reveal truths about nature while, at the same time, admitting that anti-scepticism should be moderated by epistemic humility. Understanding Duhem’s epistemological position, which was unique amongst French philosophers of science in the beginning of the 20th century, requires a careful examination of his accounts of representation, explanation, and of their interrelation.

Highlights

  • Duhem’s philosophy of science has justifiably attracted a great deal of attention

  • Duhem argues that the imposition of these conditions on the physical theory will result in an extraordinary complexity: The (...) inconvenience of such a method is that in restricting the number of elements that may be used in constructing the representation of a group of laws, physicists are left with no other resource than to complicate the combinations they make with these elements in order to respond to all of the demands of experimentation (1892a, 13)

  • It makes sense to aim to remove the contradictions among existing physical theories since the relations that there are among the causes of the phenomena are “neither indeterminate nor contradictory” (1893b, 68). This is the justification for the Unification Principle (UP): Physical theory has to try to represent the whole group of natural laws by a single system all of whose parts are logically compatible with one another (1906, 293)

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Summary

Introduction

Duhem’s philosophy of science has justifiably attracted a great deal of attention. His The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, initially published in 1906, offers a comprehensive account of science, its method and its value, which is difficult to classify according to standard categories such as instrumentalism and realism. Duhem argues that the imposition of these conditions on the physical theory will result in an extraordinary complexity: The (...) inconvenience of such a method is that in restricting the number of elements that may be used in constructing the representation of a group of laws, physicists are left with no other resource than to complicate the combinations they make with these elements in order to respond to all of the demands of experimentation (1892a, 13).

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