Aguilar Sandoval, Miguel Agustin (2025) PIERRE DUHEM ON INDUCTION AND INFERENCE IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper analyzes Pierre Duhem’s position on the role of simple induction in scientific research. Duhem has been understood as a critic of induction in science but that is not entirely accurate. Duhem holds a position similar to one that might be recognized in traditional philosophy of science (according to which, although theories are not the result of inductions, some physical laws can be understood as inductive generalizations). Nonetheless, Duhem differs from that position in ways that have not been clearly recognized in secondary literature. The most important difference is that Duhem’s distinction between inductive laws and theoretical hypotheses is not based on the kind of concepts we use but supported by a (mostly implicit) conception of scientific discovery. The idea is that there are two different processes of discovery distinguished by the use of different types of inference, of which induction is only one. Clarifying these distinctions can contribute to recent debates on the interpretation of Duhem’s philosophical work in recent literature.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Aguilar Sandoval, Miguel Agustin miguelllzim@hotmail.com 0000-0002-1014-5516
Keywords:	Duhem, Induction, Inference, experimental law, good sense, Peirce
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Depositing User:	Dr. Miguel Agustín Aguilar Sandoval
Date Deposited:	24 Nov 2025 14:02
Last Modified:	24 Nov 2025 14:02
Item ID:	27280
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Date:	10 November 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27280

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