Читать книгу Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science: A History (Third Edition) - Thomas J. Hickey - Страница 117

Duhem’s statement of the aim of science is similar to Mach`s: the aim of science is economy of thought. Like Mach, Duhem believes that experimental laws contribute an intellectual economy, because they summarize a large number of individual facts including data measurements. But unlike Mach, Duhem furthermore says that theories also contribute to the realization of the aim of science. The economy achieved by the substitution of a law for individual facts is redoubled for the mind, when the mind substitutes theories for the numerous mathematically expressed experimental laws. A theory is a system of mathematical propositions mathematically derived from a small number of principles, which aim to represent as simply, as completely, and as exactly as possible, a set of experimental laws. Its aim in other words is economy of thought by schematically representing and logically organizing experimental laws.