Article ID: CBB753185140

Was Pierre Duhem an Esprit de finesse? (2017)

unapi

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 (esprits fins and esprits géométriques). 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 (école anglaise), or if his preference for the axiomatic structure of theoretical physics shows a greater affinity with the geometric mind.

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Authors & Contributors
Stoffel, Jean-François
Silverstein, Barry
Mazauric, Simone
Calemi, Francesco
Woodward, William
Noppeney, Uta
Concepts
Psychology
Mind and body
Historians of science, modern
Philosophy
Philosophers of science, modern
Philosophy of science
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, late
18th century
17th century
Places
France
Europe
United States
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
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