dc.description.abstract | Although there are numerous similarities between Duhem and Quine, there are
strong arguments which suggest that what can be isolated as Quine’s thesis
would be unacceptable to Duhem. On the other hand, they both share Duhem’s
holistic thesis: empirical statements are interconnected in such a way that
they cannot be confirmed or refuted taken in isolation. Since Quine’s holism
is more radical, as we shall show, his thesis claims that we can always keep
a statement by making necessary adjustments somewhere else in the system. We
will try to show that only the first thesis can be rightfully ascribed to
Duhem, that these two thesis are not identical, and that they are both
different from what is usually called the theses of underdetermination. As we
shall see, neither of them speaks about the possibility of empirically
equivalent theories. They are, first and foremost, holistic theses which,
under certain additional assumptions, have the thesis of underdetermination
as their consequence. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br.
179041: Dinamički sistemi u prirodi i društvu] | en |