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Pierre Duhem: Between the Historiography of Science and Philosophy of History

Handbook for the Historiography of Science

Part of the book series: Historiographies of Science ((HISTSC))

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Abstract

This article initially analyzes Pierre Duhem’s incursions in the direction of medieval science, delineating both (a) the genesis of historiographic research brought about by his discoveries regarding medieval statics, which occurred at the end of 1903, and (b) his persistence in that direction resulting from a new set of discoveries, this time associated to medieval dynamics and the names of John Buridan and Nicole Oresme, which occurred in mid-1908. In a second moment, the article argues that the Duhemian thinking supports itself on a philosophic vision of historical development present ever since the beginning, in 1892, of his epistemological publications. It underscores that his philosophy of history, essential for sustaining an understanding of the methodology itself, is (a) optimistic insofar as it reveals that the historical events are ruled by a providence that makes even the sincere errors of the theoreticians fruitful and that (b) the author embraces a teleological, almost determinist conception of historical evolution as being governed by laws that make predictions of the future of theories possible. Lastly, based on the preceding considerations, the intention is to draft a synthetic and coherent position regarding the supposed (dis)continuism attributed to our historian.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of São João del-Rei, Ouro Branco, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Fábio Rodrigo Leite

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  1. Fábio Rodrigo Leite
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Correspondence to Fábio Rodrigo Leite .

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  1. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Mauro L. Condé

  2. Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil

    Marlon Salomon

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Leite, F.R. (2023). Pierre Duhem: Between the Historiography of Science and Philosophy of History. In: Condé, M.L., Salomon, M. (eds) Handbook for the Historiography of Science. Historiographies of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_1-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_1-1

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  1. Latest

    Pierre Duhem: Between the Historiography of Science and Philosophy of History
    Published:
    21 July 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_1-2

  2. Original

    Pierre Duhem: Between the Historiography of Science and Philosophy of History
    Published:
    30 May 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_1-1

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