The high point of the falsification of physical theories in a standard view of the philosophy of science is the so-called crucial experiment. This experiment is a kind of manipulated empirical test, which provides the criterion for distinguishing between two rival hypotheses, where one is an acceptable theory due to passing the test, and the other turns out to be an unacceptable theory as it does not pass the test. The crucial experiment was supposed to play a significant role because, (...) in virtue of an empirical disconfirmation of one theory, the experiment was assumed to confirm the other as true. However, in 1906, in La théorie physique, son object et la structure (hereafter quoted in English translation as The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906/1954)), Pierre Duhem famously argued against this view and stated that crucial experiments in physics are impossible as they are necessarily ambiguous and logically incomplete. His contention rested on the claim that, “[a] physical theory is not an explanation [of true reality in itself in virtue of some broad metaphysical ramification of physics]. It is a system of mathematical propositions, deduced from a small number of principles, which aim to represent as simply, as completely, and as accurately as possible a set of experimental laws” (ibid., p. 19). Furthermore, different theories could be equally suitable to represent a given group of experimental laws. And, assuming holism, no hypothesis could be tested in isolation, but merely as a part of a set of an entire scientific theory. The problem which Duhem identified in 1906 was slightly overshadowed and neglected in mainstream philosophy of science until the appearance of a challenging paper by Willard Van Orman Quine published in 1951 and entitled “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. Quine’s paper caused a revival of interest in Duhem’s original formulation and gave a new impulse towards the problem in the form of the so-called Duhem-Quine thesis. The aim of this paper is to reconsider whether Duhem was right to argue that there are no crucial experiments in physics. In order to assess the validity of the thesis, first, this paper makes an exposition of Duhem’s arguments in their favour, and analyses the major criticisms of this position offered in the subject-literature of Adolf Grünbaum, who explicitly attacked the arguments for the thesis as inconclusive and false. Then, this paper presents possible modes of defence of the Duhem-Quine thesis and argues that the original formulation of the thesis is well qualified and plausible. Finally, this paper offers a pragmatic interpretation of the theory choice. (shrink)

The origins of the ‘ incommensurability problem’ and its central aspect, the ‘ meaning variance thesis’ are traced to the successive collapse of several distinctions maintained by the standard empiricist account of meaning in scientific theories. The crucial distinction is that between a conceptual structure and a theory. The ‘thesis’ and the ‘problem’ follow from critiques of this distinction by Duhem, Quine and Feyerabend. It is maintained that, rather than revealing the ‘problem’, the arguments leading to it simply show the (...) inadequacy of the reductionist theory of meaning. The genuine remaining problem is that of the development of a new theory of meaning in science. (shrink)

Hempel's qualitative criteria of converse consequence and special consequence for confirmation are examined, and the resulting paradoxes traced to the general intransitivity of confirmation. Adopting a probabilistic measure of confirmation, a limiting form of transitivity of confirmation from evidence to predictions is derived, and it is shown to what extent its application depends on prior probability judgments. In arguments involving this kind of transitivity therefore there is no necessary "convergence of opinion" in the sense claimed by some personalists. The conditions (...) of application of the limiting transitivity theorem are most perspicuously described in terms of De Finetti's notion of exchangeability, which leads to a suggested revaluation of the function of theories in relation to confirmation and explanation. (shrink)

o objetivo deste artigo é proporcionar uma reconstrução racional do programa de pesquisa do racionalismo neoclássico como um substituto para o programa do racionalismo clássico. O programa do racionalismo neoclássico se desenvolve pela elaboração de uma nova concepção de ciência que a demarque da metafísica, com a definição da ciência como representação em lugar de explicação. Esse programa é constituído de três subprogramas: o convencionalismo/pragmatismo de Poincaré, o realismo convergentista de Duhem e o empirismo lógico.

In this paper I set out the problem of feminist social science as the need to explain and justify its method of theory choice in relation to both its own theories and those of androcentric social science. In doing this, it needs to avoid both a positivism which denies the impact of values on scientific theory-choice and a radical relativism which undercuts the emancipatory potential of feminist research. From the relevant literature I offer two possible solutions: the Holistic and the (...) Constructivist models of theory-choice. I then rate these models according to what extent they solve the problem of feminist social science. I argue that the principal distinction between these models is in their contrasting conceptions of truth. Solving the problem of feminist social science will require understanding that what is at stake in the debate is our conception of truth. This understanding will serve to clarify, though not resolve, the various approaches to and disagreements over methodologies and explanations in feminist social science. (shrink)