Pierre Duhem

Pierre Duhem

Full name	Pierre Duhem
Born	9 June 1861 Paris, France
Died	14 September 1916 (Aged 55) Cabrespine, France
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
Main interests	Physics, Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Epistemology
Notable ideas	Confirmation Holism, Gibbs-Duhem Equation
Influenced by Ernst Mach,[1] Blaise Pascal, William John Macquorn Rankine
Influenced John Worrall, Thomas Kuhn, Stanley Jaki

Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem ([pjˈɛʁ moʁˈis maʁˈi dyˈɛm] ( listen); 9 June^[2] 1861 – 14 September 1916) was a French physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science, best known for his writings on the indeterminacy of experimental criteria and on scientific development in the Middle Ages. Duhem also made major contributions to the science of his day, particularly in the fields of hydrodynamics, elasticity, and thermodynamics.

Philosophy

Duhem's views on the philosophy of science are explicated in The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory.^[3] In this work, he opposed Newton's statement that the Principia's law of universal mutual gravitation was deduced from 'phenomena', including Kepler's second and third laws. Newton's claims in this regard had already been attacked by critical proof-analyses of the German logician Leibniz and then most famously by Immanuel Kant, following Hume's logical critique of induction. But the novelty of Duhem's work was his proposal that Newton's theory of universal mutual gravity flatly contradicted Kepler's Laws of planetary motion because the interplanetary mutual gravitational perturbations caused deviations from Keplerian orbits. Since no proposition can be validly logically deduced from any it contradicts, according to Duhem, Newton must not have logically deduced his law of gravitation directly from Kepler's Laws.^[3][4][5][6]

Duhem's name is given to the under-determination or Duhem-Quine thesis, which holds that for any given set of observations there is an innumerably large number of explanations. It is, in essence, the same as Hume's critique of induction: all three variants point at the fact that empirical evidence cannot force the choice of a theory or its revision. Possible alternatives to induction are Duhem's instrumentalism and Popper's thesis that we learn from falsification.

As popular as the Duhem-Quine thesis may be in the philosophy of science, in reality Pierre Duhem and Willard Van Orman Quine stated very different theses. Pierre Duhem believed that experimental theory in physics is fundamentally different from fields like physiology and certain branches of chemistry. Also Duhem's conception of theoretical group has its limits, since not all concepts are connected to each other logically. He did not include at all a priori disciplines such as logic and mathematics within these theoretical groups in physics which can be tested experimentally. Quine, on the other hand, conceived this theoretical group as a unit of a whole human knowledge. To Quine, even mathematics and logic must be revised in light of recalcitrant experience, a thesis that Duhem never held.

Opposition to the English inductivist tradition

Duhem argues that physics is subject to certain methodological limitations that do not affect other sciences. In his The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory^[3] (1914), Duhem provided a devastating critique of Baconian crucial experiments. According to Duhem, an experiment in physics is not simply an observation, but rather an interpretation of observations by means of a theoretical framework. Furthermore, no matter how well one constructs one's experiment, it is impossible to subject an isolated single hypothesis to an experimental test. Instead, it is a whole interlocking group of hypotheses, background assumptions, and theories that is tested. This thesis has come to be known as holism. This inevitable holism, according to Duhem, renders crucial experiments impossible. More generally, Duhem was critical of Newton's description of the method of physics as a straightforward "deduction" from facts and observations.

In the appendix to The Aim and Structure, entitled "Physics of a Believer," Duhem draws out the implications that he sees his philosophy of science as having for those who argue that there is a conflict between physics and religion. He writes, "metaphysical and religious doctrines are judgments touching on objective reality, whereas the principles of physical theory are propositions relative to certain mathematical signs stripped of all objective existence. Since they do not have any common term, these two sorts of judgments can neither contradict nor agree with each other" (p. 285). Nonetheless, Duhem argues that it is important for the theologian or "metaphysician" to have detailed knowledge of physical theory in order not to make illegitimate use of it in speculations.

History of Science

Nicole Oresme, a prominent medieval scholar. Duhem came to regard the medieval scholastic tradition as the origin of modern science.

Duhem is well known for his work on the history of science, which resulted in the ten volume Le système du monde: histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic (The System of World: A History of Cosmological Doctrines from Plato to Copernicus).^[7] Unlike many former historians (e.g. Voltaire and Condorcet), who denigrated the Middle Ages, he endeavored to show that the Roman Catholic Church had helped foster Western science in one of its most fruitful periods. His work in this field was originally prompted by his research into the origins of statics, where he encountered the works of medieval mathematicians and philosophers such as John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Roger Bacon, whose sophistication surprised him. He consequently came to regard them as the founders of modern science, having in his view anticipated many of the discoveries of Galileo Galilei and later thinkers. Duhem concluded that "the mechanics and physics of which modern times are justifiably proud to proceed, by an uninterrupted series of scarcely perceptible improvements, from doctrines professed in the heart of the medieval schools."^[8]

Duhem popularized the concept of "saving the phenomena." In addition to the Copernican Revolution debate of "saving the phenomena" (σώζειν τα φαινόμενα)^[9][10] versus offering explanations^[11] that inspired Duhem was Thomas Aquinas, who wrote, regarding eccentrics and epicycles, that

Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle [...]. Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof of a principle, but as confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astronomy the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them. [...]^[12]

Thermodynamics

Duhem is also known for his work in thermodynamics, being in part responsible for the development of what is known as the Gibbs–Duhem relation and the Duhem–Margules equation. Duhem thought that from the first principles of thermodynamics physicists should be able to derive all the other fields of physics—e.g., chemistry, mechanics, and electromagnetism.^[13] Duhem, influenced by Macquorn Rankine's "Outlines of the Science of Energetics," carried out this project in Traité de l'énergétique (1911) but was unable to subject electromagnetism to thermodynamic first principles.

Works

English Translations

• Duhem, Pierre (1903). Thermodynamics and chemistry. A non-mathematical treatise for chemists and students of chemistry. (1st ed. ed.). New York; London: J. Wiley & sons; Chapman & Hall. OCLC 3383130. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924001081490. Retrieved 2011-08-31. 
• Duhem, Pierre (1969). To save the phenomena, an essay on the idea of physical theory from Plato to Galileo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 681213472.  (excerpt)
• Duhem, Pierre (1996). Essays in the history and philosophy of science. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co.. ISBN 9780872203082. OCLC 33968944. 
• Duhem, Pierre (1985). Medieval cosmology : theories of infinity, place, time, void, and the plurality of worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226169224. OCLC 712044683.  (excerpt: "The 12th century birth of the notion of mass which advised modern mechanics ... and void and movement in the void")
• Duhem, Pierre (1991). The aim and structure of physical theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. OCLC 24675824.  (excerpts: excerpt 1 & excerpt 2 ("Heavenly bodies: Theory, physics and philosophy"))
• Duhem, Pierre (2011). Commentary on the principles of thermodynamics by Pierre Duhem. Dordrecht; New York: Springer. ISBN 9789400703117. OCLC 733543752. http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-94-007-0310-0/contents/. 

Articles

• "Physics & Metaphysics" (1893)
• "Physics of a Believer"

Articles contributed to the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia

• History of Physics
• Pierre de Maricourt
• Jordanus de Nemore
• Nicole Oresme
• Albert of Saxony
• Thierry of Freburg
• Jean de Sax

French Originals

• Leçons sur l'électricité et le magnétisme (1891–1892)
• Les théories de la chaleur (1895)
• Le mixte et la combinaison chimique. Essai sur l'évolution d'une idée (1902)
• L'évolution de la mécanique (1902)
• Les origines de la statique volume 1 & volume 2 (1903)
• La théorie physique son objet et sa structure (1906)
• Études sur Léonard de Vinci. Paris, F. De Nobele, 1906–13; 1955. 3 v. 1. sér. I. Albert de Saxe et Léonard de Vinci. II. Léonard de Vinci et Villalpand. III. Léonard de Vinci et Bernardino Baldi. IV. Bernardino Baldi, Roberval dt Descartes. V. Thémon le fils du juif et Léonard de Vinci. VI. Léonard de Vinci, Cardan et Bernard Palissy. VII. La scientia de ponderibus et Léonard de Vinci. VIII. Albert de Saxe. 2. sér. IX. Léonard de Vinci et les deux infinis. X. Léonard de Vinci et la pluralité des mondes. XI. Nicolas de Cues et Léonard de Vinci. XII. Léonard de Vinci et les origines de la géologie. 3. sér. Les précurseurs parisiens de Galilée: XIII. Jean I. Buridan (de Béthune) et Léonard de Vinci. XIV. Le tradition de Buridan et la science italienne au XVIe siecle. XV. Dominique Soto et la scolastique parisienne.
• Sozein ta phainomena. Essai sur la Notion de Théorie physique de Platon à Galilée (1908)
• Traité de l'énergétique (1911)
• Le Système du Monde. Histoire des Doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, 10 vols. (volumes 1-5 & volumes 3, 8-10), (1913—1959)

Articles

• "Le mouvement relatif et le mouvement absolu" in the Ruvue de Philosophie
• "La valeur de la théorie physique, à propos d'un livre récent," Article publié dans la Revue des sciences pures et appliquées, dix-neuvième année (1908), p. 7-19

NOTE: The above bibliography is not exhaustive. See his complete primary sources and secondary sources at the Duhem entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Scanned editions of Duhem's works can be obtained from Gallica and the Internet Archive. OCRed and formatted editions are from ac-nancy-metz.fr.

• Works by or about Pierre Duhem in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Bibliography

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pierre Duhem

• MacTutor Biography
• Duhem's 'History of Physics' Link to Duhem's version of his history of physics published in The Catholic Encyclopedia in 1911.

References