Abstract
Much speculation on the sources of Duhem's historical interests fails to account for the major shifts in these interests: neither his belief in the continuous development of physics nor his Catholicism, when his Church was encouraging the study of generally Aristotelian scholastic thought, led to any interest in mediaeval science before 1904. Equally, his own claim that he was merely testing his views on the nature of physical theory is easily squared only with earlier work with no trace of mediaeval science. Behind this discontinuity lies a major crisis. Though not a positivist, Duhem had based all his work on assumptions acceptable to positivists. One of these, the sterility of the Middle Ages, was refuted by his chance discovery of evidence of genuine mediaeval science in the autumn of 1903, but that left the doctrine of scholastic sterility intact.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agassi, J.: 1963, Towards an Historiography of Science, History and Theory 2, pp. 1–117, Mouton, The Hague.
Blondel, M. and A. Valensin: 1957, Correspondence, Vol. 1, Aubier, Paris.
Blondel, M. and J. Wehrlé: 1969, Correspondance, extraits, Vol. 1, Aubier-Montaigne, Paris.
Blondel, M. (ed.): 1905, ‘Notre Programme’, Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne 151, 5–31.
Blondel, M. (Testis): 1909–10, ‘La Semaine Sociale de Bordeaux, controverses sur les méthodes et les doctrines’, Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne, 159, 160.
Burtt, E. A.: 1932, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science: A Historical and Critical Essay, International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London.
Bury, J. P. T.: 1976, France, 1840–1940, Methuen, London.
Butterfield, H.: 1962, The Origins of Modern Science, G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.
Congregation of the Index: 1948, Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
Daly, G.: 1980, Transcendence and Immanence, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Dansette, A.: 1938, Du Boulangisme à la Révolution Dreyfusienne: Le Boulangisme 1886–1890, Librairie Académique Perrin, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1895, Congrès scientifique international des catholiques, comte rendu du troisième congrès 1, 313–15, 322–25.
Duhem, P.: Correspondence with M. Blondel: Duhem Papers, Académie des Sciences, Paris. Blondel Papers, Archives Blondel, Chemin d'Aristote 1, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Duhem, P.: 1905, ‘Physique de Croyant’, Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne 155, 44–67 and 133–59.
Duhem, P.: 1906, 1909, 1913, Etudes sur Léonard de Vinci, ceux qu'il a lus et ceux qui l'ont lu, 3 vols., Hermann, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1903, [analyse de l'Ouvrage de Ernst Mach: La Mécanique, étude historique et critique de son développement], Bulletin des Sciences Mathématiques, 2e serie, 27, 261–83.
Duhem, P.: 1900, 1901, Les Théories Électriques de J. Clerk Maxwell, étude historique et critique, Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles 24, 25.
Duhem, P.: 1903, L'Evolution de la Mécanique, A. Joanin, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1902, Le Mixte et la Combinaison Chimique, essai sur l'Evolution d'une Idée, C. Naud, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1917, 1927, ‘Notice sur les travaux scientifiques de Pierre Duhem’, Mémoires de la Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles de Bordeaux, série 7, 1–2, 71–169.
Duhem, P.: 1903–1906, Les Origines de la Statique, Revue des Questions Scientifiques. Published 1905–6, A. Hermann, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1908, ΣΩZEIN TA ΦAINOMENA, Essai sur la notion de théorie physique, de Platon à Galilée, Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne, Hermann, Paris.
Duhem, P.: 1892, ‘Quelques Réflexions au sujet des théories physiques’, Revue des Questions Scientifiques 31, 139–77.
Duhem, P.: 1913–59, Le Système du Monde, histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, A. Hermann et fils, Paris
Duhem, P.: [1906] 1981, La Théorie Physique, son objet, sa structure, L'Histoire des Sciences, textes et études (3rd ed.), Vrin, Paris.
Dühring, E.: 1877, Kritische Geschichte der Allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik, Leipzig, Berlin.
Favaro, A.: June 1921, ‘Galileo Galilei in una Rassegna del Peniero Italiano nel Corso del Secolo decimosesto’, Archivio di Storio della Scienza 2 137–39.
Frank, P.: 1949, Modern Science and its Philosophy, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussetts.
Gardeil, A.: 1894, Revue Thomiste, 569–85, 738–59.
Gilson, É.: 1955, Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Sheed and Ward, London.
Gouhier, H.: 1933–41, La Jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, Paris.
‘Hadamard, Jacques’, Encyclopedia Judaica 7, cols 1040–1.
Hadamard, J.: 1917–27, ‘L'Œuvre de Duhem dans son Aspect Mathématique’, Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles de Bordeaux, Mémoires, série 7, 1, 637–65.
Hadamard, J.: 1937, Archeion 19 123–4.
Hadamard, J. and Jacqueline Hadamard: 1945, An Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
Hall, A. R.: [1954] 1962, The Scientific Revolution 1500–1800: the Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude, Longman, Green and Co., Ltd., London.
Hayek, F. A.: 1952, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies in the Abuse of Reason, Glencoe, Illinois.
Hentschel, K.: 1988, ‘Die Korrespondenz Duhem-Mach, zur ‘Modellbeladenheit’ von Wissenschaftsgeschichte’, Annals of Science 45 73–91.
Jaki, S. L.: 1984, Uneasy Genius, the Life and Work of Pierre Duhem, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
Knowles, D.: 1962: The Evolution of Mediaeval Thought, Longman, Green & Co. Ltd., London.
Koyré, A.: 1966, Études Galiléennes, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Collection Histoire de la Pensée 15, Hermann, Paris.
Kuhn, T. S.: 1964, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science 2/2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.
Lagrange, J. L.: 1788, 1811–15, 1853–55, Méchanique Analitique, Paris.
Lakatos, I.: 1971, in ‘History of Science and its Rational Reconstructions’, in R. C. Buck and R. S. Cohen, (eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8 173–82.
Lecanuet, E.: 1930, La Vie de l'Église sous Léon XIII, Alcan, Paris.
Leo XIII, Pope: 1887, ‘Aeterni Patris’, Allocutiones, Epistolae, Constitutiones 1.
Lowinger, A.: 1941, The Methodology of Pierre Duhem, Columbia University Press, New York.
Mach, E.: 1872, Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit, Prague.
Mach, E.: 1904, La Mécanique, Exposé historique et critque de son développement, A. Hermann, Paris.
Mach, E.: 1883, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung, historisch-kritisch dargestellt, Leipzig.
Maiocchi, R.: 1985, Chimica e Filosofia, Scienza, epistemologia, storia e religione nell'opera di Pierre Duhem, Pubblicazioni della Faccoltà di lettere e filosofia dell' Università di Milano, Sezione a cura del Dipartimento di filosofia, 110/5, La Nuova Italia Editrice, Firenze.
Maritain, J.: 1932, Distinguer pour unir, les degrés du savoir, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris.
Martin, R. N. D.: 1982, ‘Darwin and Duhem’, History of Science 20 64–74.
Martin, R. N. D.: 1976, ‘The Genesis of a Mediaeval Historian, Pierre Duhem and the Origins of Statics’, Annals of Science 33 119–29.
McCool, G. A.: 1972, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century, the Search for A Unitary Method, Seabury, New York.
Miller, D. M.: 1971, ‘Duhem, Pierre Maurice Marie’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography 4 225–33.
Nye, M. J., 1976: ‘The Moral Freedom of Man and the Determinism of Nature: the Catholic Synthesis of Science and History in the Revue des Questions Scientifiques’, British Journal for the History of Science 9 274–92.
Paul, H. W.: 1979, The Edge of Contingency, French Catholic Reaction to Scientific Change from Darwin to Duhem, University Presses of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Paul, H. W.: July 1972, ‘The Crucifix and the Crucible: Catholic Scientists in the Third Republic’, Catholic Historical Review 58 295–19.
Paul, H. W., 1969, ‘In Quest of Kerygma: Catholic Intellectual Life in Nineteenth Century France’, American Historical Review 75 387–423.
Paul, H. W.: 1967, The Second Ralliement, the Rapprochement between Church and State in France in the Twentieth Century, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D. C.
Pierre-Duhem, H.: 1936, Un Savant Français, Pierre Duhem, Plon, Paris.
Pius X, Pope: 1908, ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis: Encyclical Letter of our most Holy Lord Pius X by Divine Providence Pope on the Doctrines of the Modernists’, Actes de Pius X 3 84–181.
Poulat, É.: 1979, Histoire, Dogme et Critique dans la Crise Moderniste, Casterman, Paris.
Rose, P. L. and S. Drake: 1971, ‘The Pseudo-Aristotelian Questions of Mechanics in Renaissance Culture’, Studies in the Renaissance 18 65–104.
Simon, W. M.: 1963, European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century: an Essay in Intellectual History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Tannery, P.: Mémoires Scientifiques 14, 207–26.
Thibault, P.: 1972, Savoir et Pouvoir, philosophie thomiste et politique cléricale au XIXe siècle, Presses Universitaires de Laval, Québec.
Vicaire, E.: 1893, ‘De la Valeur Objective des Théories Physiques’, Revue des Questions Scientifiques 33 451–510.
Vidler, A. R.: 1970, A Variety of Catholic Modernists, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Weber, E., 1962: Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.
Westfall, R. S.: 1977, The Construction of Modern Science, Mechanisms and Mechanics, Cambridge History of Science Series (previously Wiley), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Drafted for the Blacksburg conference, versions of this paper were also presented at colloquia at the University of Harvard Department of the History of Science and the University of Toronto Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. I am grateful to all those who responded to earlier versions, but particularly to Phillip Quinn, the commentator on my paper at Blacksburg, and Jamil Ragep.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Martin, R.N.D. Duhem and the origins of statics: Ramifications of the crisis of 1903–04. Synthese 83, 337–355 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413420
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413420