Duhem-Quine thesis

Duhem-Quine thesis

the view associated with the French philosopher of science, Pierre Duhem (1861-1916), and the American logician, Willard Quine (1908-) that SCIENCE consists of a complex network of assumptions, concepts, hypotheses and theories which are appraised ‘as a whole’, with no possibility of individual propositions being appraised in isolation from our entire system of beliefs. See also ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC, THEORY RELATIVITY.