Tuesdays, 2–3pm (except for the workshop on Friday 9 May) in the Board Room
Organised by Hasok Chang (hc372), Richard Staley (raws1), and Neil Dewar (Faculty of Philosophy, nad42)
Easter Term 2025
9 May, 9am–1pm: Workshop on Duhem and Philosophy of Science
09:15 Introductory remarks
09:30 Alexander Bird, 'The knowledge response to the Duhem Thesis'
10:30 Break
10:45 Nicholas Teh, 'Science as practical thought: an action-theoretic reading of Duhem's Aim and Structure'
11:45 Break
12:00 Neil Dewar, 'What conventionalism demands'
Alexander Bird (University of Cambridge)
The knowledge response to the Duhem Thesis
I refute the Duhem Thesis by noting that if one knows the truth of the auxiliary hypotheses and the relevant observation statement, one can know that a tested hypothesis is false. Duhem's thesis is thus tenable only by those who have independent reason to be sceptics about the possibility of knowledge of scientific hypotheses. It thus represents no threat to scientific realism.
Nicholas Teh (University of Notre Dame)
Science as practical thought: an action-theoretic reading of Duhem's Aim and Structure
Although Pierre Duhem's The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory is a seminal text in the History and Philosophy of Science, and his 'holism' thesis is widely appreciated, few commentators have discussed the action-theoretic aspects of Duhem's treatise. In this talk, I will argue for a neo-Aristotelian reading of Duhem's text by drawing on Elizabeth Anscombe's work on practical rationality, as well as that of subsequent commentators on the Anscombean tradition such as Michael Thompson and Sebastian Roedl. On this reading, it will emerge that a scientific theory is just a special kind of practical thought, and that Duhem's 'holism' is a manifestation of a more general indeterminacy inherent in practical thought. The reading will also be fruitful in clarifying Duhem's conception of the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science.
Neil Dewar (University of Cambridge)
What conventionalism demands
Conventionalism about theory choice appears to require both (a) that the two theories are equivalent (in order that the choice can be conventional rather than factual), and (b) that the difference between the two theories is not merely verbal (in order that the conventionalism be more than mere 'trivial semantic conventionalism'). I argue that the only way to reconcile (a) and (b) is to suppose that the theories are equivalent, yet apply the same concepts in different ways.
20 May, 2–3pm
Continued discussion of Olivier Darrigol, 'Geometry, mechanics, and experience: a historico-philosophical musing'. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12, 60 (2022)
3 June, 2–3pm
Ernst Mach, 'Space and Geometry from the Point of View of Physical Inquiry'. In Space and Geometry in the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. McCormack. Cambridge Library Collection – Physical Sciences, 94–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1906].
Recommended background readings for the session on 3 June:
- Ernst Mach, 'On Physiological, as Distinguished from Geometrical, Space'. In Space and Geometry in the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. McCormack. Cambridge Library Collection – Physical Sciences, 5–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1906].
- Ernst Mach, 'On the Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry'. Translated by Thomas J. McCormack. In Popular Scientific Lectures, edited by Ernst Mach and Thomas J. McCormack. Cambridge Library Collection – Physical Sciences, 186–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014 [1882].
- The last chapter of Ernst Mach, Contributions to the Analysis of Sensations. La Salle: Open Court, 1897 (1886).