What is it about?
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, a new interest in the end of the world emerged from the recently systematised field of thermodynamics. The second principle of thermodynamics was associated with the inescapable decay of energy, and more specifically, the drop of temperature differences. In the end, no kind of work or physical transformation could be performed, and the universe would become dramatically cold and unsuitable for life. At the same time, a new sophisticated philosophy of science slowly emerged. It professed a critical attitude towards the positivist tradition, and explored the complexity and detours of scientific practice and its history. This chapter explores this context, and the specific debate on the second principle of thermodynamics that involved scientists, philosophers, and theologians in those decades. Sensitive issues such as the concepts of time, evolution, progress, dissipation, and decay were passionately discussed, and some explicit computations on the age of the universe were put forward. Scientists, philosophers and theologians pondered over hypotheses on the fate of the world. In this context of cultural excitement, the physicist and philosopher Pierre Duhem stood out. He pointed out some misinterpretations in the physical concept of entropy, and in the complex relationship between science and religion.
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Why is it important?
I find that Duhem’s texts represent the crowning achievement of the debate on the philosophical and theological exploitation of thermodynamics in the late nineteenth century. Duhem’s meta-theoretical attitude rested upon a realistic and sophisticated view of scientific practice. His view was realistic because it stemmed from the actual scientific practice: he took into account what science really was rather than what science should be. His view was sophisticated because he was aware of the complex network of experimental practices, mathematical laws, wide-scope theories, and philosophical assumptions progressing over time.
Perspectives
To accept or reject a physical theory on the basis of a “metaphysical truth” made no sense. According to Duhem, a scientific theory had nothing to do with any alleged deep truth: it could simply be “suitable or unsuitable, good or bad” in its explanation of phenomena and laws. He claimed that this meta-theoretical thesis was “neither sceptic nor positivist”. The “destructive trend” of scepticism, and the positivist attitude to identify philosophical practice with scientific method, could be contrasted only by a “radical separation” between physics and metaphysics. In the context of philosophical and theological debates on the second principle of thermodynamics, Duhem dismissed any philosophical and theological consequence as senseless.
Stefano Bordoni
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This page is a summary of: From Thermodynamics to Theology through Philosophy: the Debate on the Second Principle in the Late Nineteenth Century, November 2024, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004701908_007.
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