Pierre Duhem Quotes on Nature
Pierre Duhem’s The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (La Théorie physique: son objet et sa structure, 1906) and the multi-volume Le Système du monde (1913–59) gave early twentieth-century philosophy of science its most influential French statement of theoretical instrumentalism in the philosophy of nature. The central methodological thesis is that the mathematical physics of any given period is a system of representations whose value lies in the systematic and economical organization of natural phenomena rather than in any claimed correspondence with hidden underlying realities — and the corresponding underdetermination thesis (the famous Duhem-Quine point that no individual hypothesis confronts experience alone) frames the broader holism of empirical confirmation. The framework, integrating Catholic natural-philosophical commitments with the medieval-historiographical recovery of Buridan and the Mertonians, shaped subsequent Continental philosophy of science and the late twentieth-century Anglo-American debate over confirmation, holism, and theory choice.
Quotes
-
Attributed to Pierre Duhem:
“A physical theory is a system of mathematical propositions whose aim is to represent and classify a group of experimental laws.”
-
“The first question we should face is: What is the aim of a physical theory? To this question diverse answers have been made, but all of them may be reduced to two main principles: "A physical theory," certain logicians have replied, "has for its object the explanation of a group of laws experimentally established." "A physical theory," other thinkers have said, "is an abstract system whose aim is ”
Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem, translated by Philip P. Wiener (1991). The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory . Princeton University Press. p. 10. ISBN 069102524X . -
“[U]n symbole n'est, à proprement parler, ni vrai, ni faux; il est plus ou moins bien choisi pour signifier la réalité qu'il représente, il la figure d'une manière plus ou moins précise, plus ou moins détaillée...”
Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem, translated by Philip P. Wiener (1991). The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory . Princeton University Press. p. 168. ISBN 069102524X . -
“A physical theory reputed to be satisfactory by the sectarians of one metaphysical school will be rejected by the partisans of another school.”
Wikiquote -
“Agreement with experiment is the sole criteria of truth for a physical theory .”
Wikiquote -
“The one who contributed most to break down the barrier between physical method and metaphysical method, and to confound their domains, so clearly distinguished in the Aristotelian philosophy, was surely Descartes.”
Wikiquote -
“Every time people cite a principle of theoretical physics in support of a metaphysical doctrine or physical dogma, they commit a mistake, for they attribute to this principle a meaning not its own, an import not belonging to it.”
Wikiquote