Duhem’s Bon Sens, Objectivity and Theoretical Choice

Abstract

Epistemology has sought to account for the validity of scientific change by formulating methodological rules that would make it possible to establish how and when to select —or reject— scientific theories without ambiguity. However, Duhem’s (1906) thesis undermines this project: if no general law has observational consequences by itself, then it is illusory to suppose that such general laws or hypotheses could be verified and/or refuted hic et nunc. This thesis is the main reason why attempts to guarantee the impartiality of scientific progress by means of an algorithmic methodology (Kuhn dixit) have been abandoned, and at the same time, it opens the possibility of explaining such validity by means of a practical rationality, specifically, by resorting to an epistemology of virtue (e.g., Velasco, 1997). In this paper, I argue that the attempt to account for the validity of theoretical-conceptual change by means of a practical rationality is as inadequate as the attempt to do it by resorting to the methodological tradition. To support my thesis, I first reconstruct the debate among Grünbaum (1976), Feyerabend (2016), Laudan (1976), and Ariew (1984) on the exegesis provided by Quine (1961) of Duhem’s thesis. The result is that it is an exegetical misunderstanding to identify Duhem’s thesis with the so-called Duhem-Quine thesis. Next, I address the question of whether Duhem’s good sense [bon sens] allows us to explain fairness in the choice of scientific theories that are empirically equivalent but distinct and incompatible with each other. After exposing, examining, and, as far as possible, enriching the argumentation carried out by Stump (2006), Ivanova (2010), and Fairweather (2011), I conclude that such an attempt is unsatisfactory.