-
The Birth of a Philosopher
Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem was born on June 10, 1861, in Paris to father Pierre-Joseph Duhem and mother Marie-Alexandrine Fabre. -
Young Studies
At the age of 7, Duhem studied grammar, arithmetic, Latin, and catechism. His parents ensured he had a good education. This led him to write a paper, at the age of 9, about the siege of Chateaudun, demonstrating his ability to be a literate writer. -
Franco-Prussian War
Unfortunately, war struck Parris. The Duhems were able to avoid the advance of Prussians against Parris. They escaped to Bordeaux and then returned to Parris after the war had stopped. This is when they experienced the Parris Commune. One of the Communes decrees was separation of Church from State. The Duhrems did not approve as the Communes actions were quite radical such as desecration of churches and graveyards. The Commune was a Paradigm in anarchy and irreligion. -
College
Duhem enrolled in the institution, Ecole Normale Supérieure, where he became the first in his class and remained first throughout his time there. Even though the curriculum was only three years long, Duhem was granted a fourth and fifth year. There he received a license in mathematics and physics. In his final year, he was offered a position as a chemist-bacteriologist but ultimately refused because he desired a position in theoretical physics. -
Rejection
In Duhems third academic year (84-85), he wrote a thesis paper on Physics for his Docterate. Unfortunately, a panel of three scholars, physicist Gabriel Lippmann, mathematicians Charles Hermite and Emile Picard. French scientists were predominantly liberal and Duhem was openly conservative. This rejection seemed to have been political. Fortunately, Duhem was able to submit his dissertation in October of 1888, allowing him to receive his Doctorate. -
Married
Duhem became the Maitre de Conférences at the Faculté des Sciences at Lille in 1887. This is where he met Adèle Chayet. The later got married in 1890. Adèle birthed a child in 1891 and died during childbirth with their second child. -
Literature
In the 1890s, Duhem published multiple books ranging from thermodynamics and physics to publishing on elasticity and energetics. This led to the publications of some of the most influential books on the Philosophy of Science. He also had essays on the History of Science. -
Contributions
Duhems scientific program was driven by thermodynamics and was the foundation for physical theory. Duhem–Margules and Gibbs–Duhem equations were major contributions to thermodynamics and physical chemistry. -
Final words
Before Duhem passed away in 1916, he wrote Le Système du monde, but he was not able to finish it. He expected it to be a twelve-volume work on the history of cosmological doctrines, ending with Copernicus. Only ten of the books were published, the tenth being incomplete. They imparted an enormous amount of information about medieval astronomy, astrology, tidal theory, and geostatics. -
Confirmation Holism
The Duhem and Quine thesis was named after Pierre Duhem and Willard Van Orman Quine. The thesis states that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions. Duhem believed this applied to Physics but Quine believed it pertained to mathematics and logic as well. -
References
Ariew, Roger, "Pierre Duhem", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/duhem/ "Confirmation holism." New World Encyclopedia, . 20 Mar 2017, 15:57 UTC. 28 Feb 2022, 02:44 https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Confirmation_holism&oldid=1003793