This paper is intended to link the notion of bon sens with the Greek notion of noûs, that exposes the role played by the first notion in the thought of Pierre Duhem and explains the concept of noûs in the thought of Aristotle. Later, it attempts to carry out the explanation of the link that can have both notions.

(2005). Was Pierre Duhem a Precursor of Postmodernism? Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the french tradition issue editor: andrew aitken, pp. 27-38.

Introduction to Dossier Pierre Duhem’s Philosophy and History of Science.

For many decades, Duhem has been considered a paradigmatic instrumentalist, and while some commentators have argued against classifying him in this way, it still seems prevalent as an interpretation of his philosophy of science. Yet such a construal bears scant resemblance to the views presented in his own works—so little, indeed, that it might be said to constitute no more than a mere phantom with respect to his actual thought. In this article, we aim to deconstruct this phantom, tracing the (...) sources of the misconceptions surrounding his ideas and pinpointing the sources and/or causes of its proliferation. We subsequently point out and discuss those elements of his philosophy that, taken together, support the view of him as a scientific realist of a sophisticated kind. Finally, we defend our own interpretation of his thought against suggestions to the effect that it is oriented towards neither instrumentalism nor scientific realism. (shrink)

Although Pierre Duhem is well known for his conventionalist outlook and, in particular, for his critique of crucial experiments outlined in his thesis on the empirical indeterminacy of theory, he also contributed to the scholarship on the psychological profiles of scientists by revising Pascal’s famous distinction between the subtle mind and the geometric mind. For Duhem, the ideal scientist is the one who combines the defining qualities of both types of intellect. As a physicist, Duhem made important theoretical contributions to (...) the field of thermodynamics as well as to the then-nascent physical chemistry. Due to his rejection of atomism and his unrelenting critique of Maxwell’s electrodynamics, however, in his later years, Duhem’s work was surpassed and abandoned by the dominant tendencies of physics of the time. In this essay, I will discuss whether Duhem himself can be understood through the lens of his own account of the scientist’s psychological profile. More specifically, I examine whether the subtle mind – to which he seems to assign greater cognitive value – in fact plays a key role in Duhem’s critique of the English School, or if his preference for the axiomatic structure of theoretical physics shows a greater affinity with the geometric mind. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem can be looked upon as one of the heirs of a tradition of historical and philosophical researches that flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. This tradition opposed the naïve historiography and epistemology of the positivist school. Beside the positivists of different leanings such as Littré, Laffitte, Wyrouboff, and Berthelot, we find Cournot, Naville, and Tannery, who developed sophisticated histories and philosophies of science focusing on the real scientific practice and its history. They unfolded elements of (...) continuity and discontinuity in the history of science, and enlightened the complex relationship among experimental, mathematical, logical and philosophical components in scientific practice. In Pierre Duhem we find a systematic and vivid interpretation of these meta-theoretical issues, and a meaningful development of a cultural tradition that re-emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)