Element contents
Duhem and Holism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2021
Summary
The holistic thesis developed by Pierre Duhem challenges the idea that our evidence can conclusively falsify a theory. Given that no scientific theory is tested in isolation, a negative experiment can always be attributed to components other than the theory we test – to the auxiliary hypotheses and background assumptions. How do scientists decide whether the experimental result undermines the theory or points at an error in the underlying assumptions? Duhem argues that we cannot offer a rule that directs when the scientist should employ a radical or conservative strategy in light of a negative result, and ultimately they will appeal to their intuition. More recently philosophers have offered a number of strategies of how to locate error and justify the abandonment of a theory or an auxiliary hypothesis. This Element analyses Duhem's response to holism and subsequent accounts of how the problem can be resolved.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781009004657Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 29 July 2021
Bibliography
Achinstein, P. (2007). Atom’s empirical Eve: Methodological disputes and how to evaluate them, Perspectives on Science, 15 (3), 359–90.Google Scholar
Achinstein, P. (1991). Particles and Waves: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arabatzis, T. (2008). Experiment. In Curd, M. and Psillos, S. (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, Routledge, 159–70.Google Scholar
Ariew, R. (1984). The Duhem thesis, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 35, 313–25.Google Scholar
Baetu, T. (2019). On the possibility of crucial experiments in biology, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 70, 407–29.Google Scholar
Beauchemin, P. H. (2017). Autopsy of measurements with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Synthese, 194, 275–312.Google Scholar
Ben-Menahem, Y. (2006). Conventionalism: From Poincaré to Quine. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bhakthavatsalam, S. (2017). Duhemian good sense and agent reliabilism, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 64, 22–9.Google Scholar
Bhakthavatsalam, S. (2015). The rationale behind Pierre Duhem’s natural classification, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 51, 11–21.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. (1983). On the current status of the issue of scientific realism, Erkenntnis, 19, 45–90.Google Scholar
Breitenbach, A. (2013). Aesthetics in science: A Kantian proposal, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 113, 83–100.Google Scholar
Brenner, A. (1990). Holism a century ago: The elaboration of Duhem’s thesis, Synthese, 83, 325–35.Google Scholar
Brownstein, M., and Saul, J. (2016) Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Metaphysics and Epistemology, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, A. (2013). What Is This Thing Called Science? 3rd edition, University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Chang, H. (forthcoming). Realism for Realistic People, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coko, K. (2020). Jean Perrin and the philosophers’ stories: The role of multiple determination in determining Avogadro’s number, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 10 (1), 143–93.Google Scholar
Coko, K. (2015). Epistemology of a believing historian: Making sense of Duhem’s anti-atomism. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 50, 71–82.Google Scholar
Criado-Perez, C. (2019). Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Vintage.Google Scholar
Cushing, J. (1994). Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen Hegemony, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Darden, L. (1991). Theory Change in Science: Strategies from Mendelian Genetics. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, L. (1990). Diagnosing and fixing faults in theories. In Shrager, J. and Langley, P. (eds.), Computational Models of Scientific Discovery and Theory Formation, Morgan Kaufmann, 319–46.Google Scholar
Darling, K. M. (2003). Motivational realism: The natural classification for Pierre Duhem, Philosophy of Science, 70 (5), 1125–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietrich, M., and Honenberger, P. (2020) Duhem’s problem revisited: Logical vs epistemic formulations and solutions, Synthese, 197, 337–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dion, S. M. (2013) Pierre Duhem and the inconsistency between instrumentalism and natural classification, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 44, 12–19.Google Scholar
Dorling, J. (1979). Bayesian personalism, the methodology of scientific research programmes, and Duhem’s problem, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 10 (3), 177–87.Google Scholar
Duhem, P. (1991 [1915]). German Science: Some Reflections on German Science: German Science and German Virtues (J. Lyon, trans.), Open Court.Google Scholar
Duhem, P. (1969 [1908]). To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo (E. Doland and C. Mascher, trans.), University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Duhem, P. (1954 [1906]). The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fairweather, A. (2012). The epistemic value of good sense, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 43, 139–46.Google Scholar
Fitelson, B., and Waterman, A. (2005). Bayesian confirmation and auxiliary hypotheses revisited: A reply to Strevens. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 56, 293–302.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gower, B. S. (2000). Cassirer, Schlick and ‘structural’ realism: The philosophy of the exact sciences in the background to early logical empiricism’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 8, 71–106.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, A. (1962). The falsifiability of theories: Total or partial? A contemporary evaluation of the Duhem-Quine thesis, Synthese, 14, 17–34.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1992). The self-vindication of the laboratory sciences. In Pickering, A (ed.), Science As Practice and Culture, University of Chicago Press, 29–64.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harding, S. G. (ed.) (1975). Can Theories Be Refuted? Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis, Reidel.Google Scholar
Hoefer, C., and Rosenberg, A. (1994). Empirical equivalence, underdetermination, and systems of the World. Philosophy of Science, 61, 592–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, F. L. (2008). Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA, Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Howson, C., and Urbach, P. (1989). Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, Open Court.Google Scholar
Hudson, R. (2020) What was Perrin really doing in his proof of the reality of atoms? HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 10, 194–218.Google Scholar
Hull, D. (1988). Science As a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (forthcoming). Theory virtues and theory acceptance, Lauener Series in Philosophy: Bas van Fraassen’s Contribution to Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2021). The aesthetics of scientific experiments. Philosophy Compass. DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12730CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2020b). Reflections on the reception of Jean Perrin’s experiments by his contemporaries, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 219-224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2020a). Beauty, truth and understanding. In Ivanova, Milena and French, Steven (eds.) The Aesthetics of Science: Beauty, Imagination and Understanding, Routledge, 86–104.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2017a). Aesthetic values in science, Philosophy Compass, 12. DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12433Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2015). Conventionalism about what? Where Duhem and Poincaré part ways, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 54, 80–9.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2014). Is there a place for epistemic virtues in theory choice? In Fairweather, A (ed.), Virtue Scientia: Bridges between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library, 366, 207–26.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2013). Did Perrin’s experiments convert Poincaré to scientific realism? HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 3, 1–19.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2011). ‘Good sense’ in context: A response to Kidd, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 42, 610–12.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M. (2010). Pierre Duhem’s good sense as a guide to theory choice. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 41, 58–64.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M., and French, S. (2020). The Aesthetics of Science: Beauty, Imagination and Understanding, Routledge.Google Scholar
Ivanova, M., and Paternotte, C. (2013). Theory choice, good sense and social consensus. Erkenntnis, 78, 1109–32.Google Scholar
Kidd, I. (2011). Pierre Duhem’s epistemic aims and the intellectual virtue of humility: A reply to Ivanova. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 42, 185–9.Google Scholar
Kidd, I., Battaly, H. and Cassam, Q. (2020). Vice Epistemology: Theory and Practice, Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1993). The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kollerstrom, N. (2006) An hiatus in history: The British claim for Neptune’s co-prediction, 1845–1846. Part I, History of Science, 44, 141–62.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. (1977). Objectivity, value judgment, and theory choice. In The Essential Tension, University of Chicago Press, 320–53.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laudan, L., & Leplin, J. (1991). Empirical equivalence and underdetermination. Journal of Philosophy, 88, 269–85.Google Scholar
Longino, H. (1990). Science As Social Knowledge: Value and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lugg, A. (1990). Pierre Duhem’s conception of natural classification. Synthese, 83, 409–20.Google Scholar
Martin, E. (1991). The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male female roles. Signs, 16, 485–501.Google Scholar
Martin, R. N. D. (1991). Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and History in the Work of a Believing Physicist, Open Court.Google Scholar
Massey, G. J. (2011). Quine and Duhem on holistic hypotheses testing, American Philosophical Quarterly, 48, 239–66.Google Scholar
Mättig, P., and Stöltzner, M. (2019). Model choice and crucial tests. On the empirical epistemology of the Higgs discovery, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 65, 73–96.Google Scholar
Maxwell, G. (1962). The ontological status of theoretical entities. In Feigl, H. and Maxwell, G. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 3, University of Minnesota Press, 3–14.Google Scholar
Mayo, D. G. (1997). Duhem’s problem, the Bayesian way, and error statistics, or ‘What’s belief got to do with it?’ Philosophy of Science, 64, 222–44.Google Scholar
Mayo, D. G. (1996). Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McMullin, E. (2009). The virtue of a perfect theory. In Curd, M. and Psillos, S. (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, Routledge.Google Scholar
Meselson, M., and Stahl, F. W. (1958). The replication of DNA in Escherichia coli, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 44, 671–82.Google Scholar
Miller, B. (2013). When is consensus knowledge based? Distinguishing shared knowledge from mere agreement. Synthese, 190, 1293–1316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mongin, P. (2009). Duhemian themes in expected utility theory. In Brenner, A. and Gayon, J. (eds.), French Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Springer.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. (2000) Van Fraassen’s critique of inference to the best explanation, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 31, 691–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paternotte, C. and Ivanova, M. (2017). Virtues and vices in scientific practice. Synthese 194, 1787–1807.Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, G., and Kidd, I. (2017). The Routledge Handbook to Epistemic Injustice, Routledge.Google Scholar
Poincaré, H. (2001 [1902]) Science and hypothesis. In Gould (ed.), S., The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincaré, The Modern Library.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1963) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge.Google Scholar
Psillos, S. (2014). The view from within and the view from above: Looking at van Fraassen’s Perrin, Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science, Synthese Library 36: 143–66.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975). Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1: Mathematics, Matter and Method, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rowbottom, D. P. (2010). Corroboration and auxiliary hypotheses: Duhem’s thesis revisited, Synthese, 177, 139–49.Google Scholar
Schindler, S. (2018). Theory Virtues in Science: Uncovering Reality through Theory, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (2004). Likelihood, model selection, and the Duhem-Quine problem. The Journal of Philosophy, 101, 221–41.Google Scholar
Stanford, P. K. (2006) Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strevens, M. (2003) The role of the priority rule in science. Journal of Philosophy 100, 55–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strevens, M. (2001). The Bayesian treatment of auxiliary hypotheses. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 52, 515–37.Google Scholar
Stump, D. (2011). The scientist as impartial judge: Moral values in Duhem’s philosophy of science. New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory (book symposium), Metascience, 20, 1–25.Google Scholar
Stump, D. (2007). Pierre Duhem’s virtue epistemology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 38, 149–59.Google Scholar
Todd, C. S. (2008). Unmasking the truth beneath the beauty: Why the supposed aesthetic judgments made in science may not be aesthetic at all. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 22: 61–79.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (2009). The perils of Perrin, in the hands of philosophers. Philosophical Studies, 143, 5–24.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (2009). The crux of crucial experiments: Duhem’s problems and inference to the best explanation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 60, 19–49.Google Scholar
Weisberg, M., and Muldoon, R. (2009). Epistemic landscapes and the division of labour. Philosophy of Science, 76, 225–52.Google Scholar
Worrall, J. (2009) Underdetermination, realism and empirical equivalence, Synthese, 180, 157–72.Google Scholar
Worrall, J. (1996 [1989]). Structural realism: The best of both worlds? In Papineau, D. (ed.), The Philosophy of Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 139–66.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (2003). The search for the source of epistemic good. In Brady, M. and Pritchard, D. (eds.), Moral and Epistemic Virtues, Blackwell, 13–27.Google Scholar
Zollman, K. J. S. (2010). The epistemic benefit of transient diversity. Erkenntnis, 72, 17–35.Google Scholar
- 13
- Cited by