On Sun, 29 Jul 2001 04:19:35 +0000 "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
writes:
>
> BTW Pierre Duhem championed
> >a philosophy of science that was rather akin to Mach's
> >
> >Jim F.
> >
>
> Them's fightin' words, Jim. Or, as The Virginian put it, Smile when
> you say
> that. What makes you say this?
Because, both Duhem and Mach were positivists, both had pragmatist leanings, both men shared rather similar conceptions of science. Both Duhem and Mach argued that the science aims at providing us with useful descriptions of phenomena. Science should promote (1) economy, easing the load on one's memory and (2) classification, allowing one to select the laws one needs on a particular occasion for a particular purpose; and of course (3) prediction.
Duhem went much further than Mach when he promoted his holistic conception of the verification of scientific hypotheses. He also, differed from Mach, in that while both men shared a positivist conception of science, Duhem (as a devout Catholic) attempted to make room for metaphysics in his thinking. For Duhem, science aims at the description of phenomena, and not their explanation as such. But metaphysics in his view did aim at explanation.
Jim F.
>
> --jks
>
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