Grünbaum on the ‘Duhemian Argument’

Abstract

In several recent publications¹, Professor Adolf Grünbaum has inveighed against the conventionalism of writers like Einstein, Poincaré, Quine and especially Duhem. Specifically, Grünbaum has assailed the view that a single hypothesis can never be conclusively falsified. Grünbaum claims that the conventionalists’ insistence on the immunity of hypotheses from falsification is neither logically valid nor scientifically sound. Directing the weight of his argument against Duhem, Grünbaum launches a two- pronged attack. He insists, first, that conclusive falsifying experiments are possible, suggesting that Duhem’s denial of such experiments is a logical non-sequitur. He then proceeds to show that, more than being merely possible, crucial falsifying experiments have occurred in physics. I do not intend to make a logical point against Grünbaum’s critique so much as an historical and exegetical one. Put briefly, I believe that he has misconstrued Duhem’s views on falsifiability and that the logical blunder which he discussed should not be ascribed to Duhem, but rather to those who have made Duhem’s conventionalism into the doctrine which Grünbaum attacks. Whether there are any writers who accept the view he imputes to Duhem, or whether he is exploiting ‘straw-men’ to give weight to an otherwise trivial argument is an open question. For now, I simply want to suggest that his salvos are wrongly directed against Duhem.

From Philosophy of Science, Vol. 32 (1965). Reprinted by permission.