dimensión creativa y política en la ciencia

El presente artículo tiene dos propósitos: el primero, establecer relaciones entre las nociones de creatividad propuestas por el filósofo pragmatista Charles S. Peirce y el filósofo de la ciencia Pierre Duhem; el segundo, identificar relaciones entre las reflexiones políticas suscitadas por el filósofo pragmatista John Dewey y el filósofo del positivismo lógico Otto Neurath. La creatividad y la política son dos dimensiones que, por lo general, se consideran ajenas a la actividad científica —juzgada como una labor meramente racional y lógica—, pero que terminan por desempeñar un rol fundamental dentro de esta.

Pierre Duhem and the Continuous Development of Science

When attempting to assess what history of science, doubtless an important element of our culture, owes to the French philosopher and scientist Pierre Duhem, one has to emphasise the critical role he played in rethinking the world outlook inherited from the preceding times and in developing a new one more apt to contemporary science. This analysis draws on such key Duhem’s writings as «The World System» («Le système du monde») and «Studies on Leonardo da Vinci» («Études sur Léonard de Vinci»). Two Duhem’s theses deserve particular attention. One is his assertion that Christianity (and the Catholic Church for that) did not impede, but rather contributed to the development of science having dispensed with cosmological assumptions of Greek Paganism incompatible with contemporary science. Secondly, Duhem argues that intuitions to pave way to the scientific revolution were first advocated by such Sorbonne Scholastics as Jean Buridan and Nicholas Oresme. It is noteworthy that the French scientist clearly underestimates the contribution of non-French thinkers to the emerging set of cultural axioms. Duhem’s new ontology of cognition is closely related to the ideas of new epistemology. Viewing evolution of science as a gradual continuous process, he endorsed the holist idea that isolated scientific propositions could neither be verified nor falsified. The truth of any proposition is inseparable from the truth of the system of hypotheses as a whole. Hence science progresses not by rejecting old theories, but by modifying them: in due course old concepts give way to new ones. This topical assumption that progress of science is to be viewed and understood in its specific socio-cultural context delineates the principle on which the answer to the no less topical question of the philosophy of culture, viz. why modern science has emerged in Europe rather than elsewhere, is to be based on.

Antirrealismo e indução

Caracterizamos neste artigo a postura epistemológica do jovem Mário Schenberg, tal como expressada em seu primeiro no trabalho, Os princípios da mecânica, publicado em 1934 pela Revista Polytechnica. Destacamos os diálogos explícitos e implícitos que Schenberg trava com epistemólogos e físicos da transição do século XIX para o XX, particularmente os diálogos com Pierre Duhem e Ernst Mach. À época, Schenberg defende uma epistemologia antirrealista e instrumentalista, contra uma invasão de elementos metafísicos na teoria. O jovem Schenberg defende, ainda, a segurança do processo de teorização por indução, com uma ascensão dos experimentos às leis e das leis a teoria. No momento da publicação do artigo, Schenberg era um estudante de engenharia da Escola Politécnica de São Paulo, recém transferido da Escola de Engenharia de Pernambuco, onde conhecera o professor Luiz Freire. A influência de Freire foi determinante sobre a trajetória científica de Schenberg, que se tornaria o primeiro físico teórico stricto sensu do Brasil. É por meio de Freire que Schenberg se aproxima de uma tradição relativamente marginal de professores das escolas de engenharia que foram construindo, ao longo das primeiras décadas do século XX, uma identidade científica. Esse grupo de professores militava pela “ciência pura”, se contrapondo ao utilitarismo predominante nas escolas politécnicas no período anterior à fundação das universidades. O artigo de Schenberg pode ser lido como um dos últimos trabalhos dessa tradição de engenheiros com identidade científica, um trabalho que, ao mesmo tempo que carrega alguns traços da tradição politécnica, aponta para uma reflexão que só se desenvolveria plenamente com o surgimento de um regime científico disciplinar no interior das faculdades de ciências fundadas na segunda metade dos anos 1930

Aquinas’ Commentaries on Boethius’ Treatises: a Modification or Interpretation?

Nearly seven hundred years after the death of Boethius, Saint Thomas Aquinas appears to comment on the two works of Boethius: De Trinitate and De Hebdomadibus. In the last years of the 20th century, Aquinas’ comments aroused many discussions and questions among scholars. The question was asked why Aquinas was commenting on the texts of Boethius. Some scholars, such as Marian Kurdziałek, a Polish philosopher, argued that Aquinas intended to get rid of the old method of argumentation that dominated both philosophy and theology. Other scholars, such as Etienne Gilson, Pierre Duhem and Cornelio Fabro, criticized Aquinas, arguing that he used the texts of Boethius as a platform to create a metaphysics that was completely different. The last group of scholars, such as Ralph McInerny, rejects these allegations and claims. The article author joins the ongoing debate, arguing that Aquinas’s comments to Boethius aimed to develop further arguments against the heretics who lived in his time upon the authority of Boethius, who according to Timothy Noone represented the characteristic style of the scholars from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. The other part of the article discusses the question of whether Aquinas’ comments were correct interpretations of Boethius’ texts. In his opinion, the author of the article claims that the interpretations of the texts of Boethius made by Saint Thomas Aquinas is credible and may be the best commentary on Boethius. But, it is necessary to keep in mind the modifications resulting from various scientific cultures that prevailed in the time of the two great scholars.

Pierre Duhem: Um Filósofo do Senso Comum

O presente artigo visa a elucidar os fundamentos da metodologia científica de Pierre Duhem, realçando alguns aspectos anti-convencionalistas da mesma. Argumentamos que seu método ampara-se em noções e princípios provenientes do senso comum. Inicialmente, distinguimos os significados que este conceito assume ao longo de sua obra, comparando-o com a noção de bom senso, para, em seguida, justificarmos por que suas críticas a Wilhelm Ostwald, Albert Einstein e Bernhard Riemann, feitas em nome do senso comum, não envolvem, como alguns importantes estudiosos supuseram, contradição alguma. Por fim, sustentamos que sua obra de maturidade, especialmente A ciência alemã, apesar de resultante do clima intelectual belicoso, deve ser alçada ao mesmo patamar de importância geralmente atribuído a A teoria física.

Pierre Duhem, a Hundred Years Later

Pierre Duhem, cent ans plus tard (1916 – 2016). Actes de la journée d’étude internationale tenue à Tunis le 10 mars 2016, suivis de l’édition française de l’Histoire de la physique (1911). [Pierre Duhem, a hundred years later (1916 - 2016). Proceedings of the International Study Day held in Tunis on March 10, 2016, followed by the French edition of the History of Physics (1911)]. Edited by Jean-François Stoffel, with the collaboration of Souad Ben Ali. Tunis: Université de Tunis, 2017. 412 p. ISBN: 978-9973-06-968-9.

Crucial experiments

A ‘crucial experiment’ allegedly establishes the truth of one of a set of competing theories. Francis Bacon (1620) held that such experiments are frequent in the empirical sciences and are particularly important for terminating an investigation. These claims were denied by Pierre Duhem (1905), who maintained that crucial experiments are impossible in the physical sciences because they require a complete enumeration of all possible theories to explain a phenomenon – something that cannot be achieved. Despite Duhem, scientists frequently regard certain experiments as crucial in the sense that the experimental result helps make one theory among a set of competitors very probable and the others very improbable, given what is currently known.

GASTON BACHELARD AND PIERRE DUHEM: EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISCONTINUITY AND CONTINUITY

This article aims to clarify the theme of continuity and epistemological discontinuity from Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) and Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), both French thinkers. The first author has a continuum view on the development of sciences, in which the progress of scientific knowledge would occur from continuous repairs on a theoretical system that evolves gradually. Gaston Bachelard, on the other hand, defends the thesis of the epistemological rupture, according to which he thinks the evolution of the sciences through his interregnums and reorganizations. Knowledge moves through rectifications of knowledge that are updated in the light of new experiences, without a cumulative process of ideas occurring. It is intended in this work to clarify the Bachelardian view on epistemological discontinuity as opposed to Duhemian thought. Keywords: Continuity. Discontinuity. Epistemology. Duhem. Bachelard.