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Poincaré is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincaré׳s epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincaré׳s conventionalism and its position in Poincaré׳s hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincaré scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his hierarchical account of (...) |
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This paper examines whether, and in what contexts, Duhem’s and Poincaré’s views can be regarded as conventionalist or structural realist. After analysing the three different contexts in which conventionalism is attributed to them – in the context of the aim of science, the underdetermination problem and the epistemological status of certain principles – I show that neither Duhem’s nor Poincaré’s arguments can be regarded as conventionalist. I argue that Duhem and Poincaré offer different solutions to the problem of theory choice, (...) |
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I present an exegesis of Henri Poincaré’s metaphysical position in three key essays within his book The Value of Science. In doing so, I argue for three theses: (a) that Poincaré’s metaphysical position in these sources is incompatible with his metaphysical position in his earlier book Science and Hypothesis; (b) that the phenomenological relationism defended by Poincaré in these sources is not a form of structural realism but rather a structuralist form of empiricism and (by design) has no greater metaphysical (...) |
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The main goal of part 1 is to challenge the widely held view that Poincaré orders the sciences in a hierarchy of dependence, such that all others presuppose arithmetic. Commentators have suggested that the intuition that grounds the use of induction in arithmetic also underlies the conception of a continuum, that the consistency of geometrical axioms must be proved through arithmetical induction, and that arithmetical induction licenses the supposition that certain operations form a group. I criticize each of these readings. (...) |
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String dualities establish empirical equivalence between theories that often look entirely different with respect to their basic ontology and physical structure. Therefore, they represent a particularly interesting example of empirical equivalence in physics. However, the status of duality relations in string physics differs substantially from the traditional understanding of the role played by empirical equivalence. The paper specifies three important differences and argues that they are related to a substantially altered view on the underdetermination of theory building. |
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Scientific change has two important dimensions: conceptual change and structural change. In this paper, I argue that the existence of conceptual change brings serious difficulties for scientific realism, and the existence of structural change makes structural realism look quite implausible. I then sketch an alternative account of scientific change, in terms of partial structures, that accommodates both conceptual and structural changes. The proposal, however, is not realist, and supports a structuralist version of van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism (structural empiricism). |
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This paper offers an interpretation of Poincaré's conventionalism, distinguishing it from the Duhem–Quine thesis, on the one hand, and, on the other, from the logical positivist understanding of conventionalism as a general account of necessary truth. It also confronts Poincaré's conventionalism with some counter-arguments that have been influential: Einstein's (general) relativistic argument, and the linguistic rejoinders of Quine and Davidson. In the first section, the distinct roles played by the inter-translatability of different geometries, the inaccessibility of space to direct observation, (...) |
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