Claim
Duhem–Quine thesis
Overview
In philosophy of science, the Duhem–Quine thesis, also called the Duhem–Quine problem, says that unambiguous falsifications of a scientific hypothesis are impossible, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions. Rather than disproving the main hypothesis, the blame can be placed on one of the background beliefs or "auxiliary" hypotheses. It is named after French theoretical physicist Pierre Duhem and American logician Willard Van Orman Quine, who wrote about similar concepts.
In recent decades, the set of associated assumptions supporting a thesis sometimes is called a bundle of hypotheses, i.e. a hypothesis and its background assumptions. Although a bundle of hypotheses as a whole can be tested against the empirical world and be falsified if it fails the test, the Duhem–Quine thesis says it is impossible to isolate a single hypothesis in the bundle, a viewpoint called confirmation holism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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We say of a fact or statement, that it is proved, when we believe its truth by reason of some other fact or statement from which it is said to _follow_. Most of the propositions, whether affirmative or negative, universal, particular, or singular, which we believe, are not believed on their own evidence, but on the ground of something previously assented to, from which they are said to be _inferred_. To infer a…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Duhem–Quine thesis is.
The predicate of the conclusion is called the major term of the syllogism; the subject of the conclusion is called the minor term. As there can be but three terms, the major and minor terms must each be found in one, and only one, of the premises, together with the middle term which is in them both. The premise which contains the middle term and the major term is called the major premise; that which contains the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Duhem–Quine thesis is.
Proposition XII. The senses mislead, and are in many cases inefficient; their perceptions, therefore, cannot form the basis of any law, or yield data for any proof. First Proposition. “The Universe, that is, everything contained in it, is composed of very small parts [atoms] which are indivisible on account of their smallness; such an atom has no magnitude; but when several atoms combine, the sum has a magnitude…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
States what Duhem–Quine thesis is.
Philosophers who discussed Duhem–Quine thesis
Related ideas
- Falsifiability
- Springer Science+Business Media
- Truth value
- Underdetermination
- Modus ponens
- Classical mechanics
- Knowledge
- Myth
- Confirmation holism
- Galileo Galilei
- Empirical evidence
- Willard Van Orman Quine
- Philosophy of science
- Many-valued logic
- Pierre Duhem
- Classical logic
- A priori and a posteriori
- Two Dogmas of Empiricism
- Earth
- Epistemology
- Cesare Cremonini (philosopher)
- Deviant logic
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.