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If ever a major study of the history of science should have acted
like a sudden revolution it is this book, published in two volumes
in 1905 and 1906 under the title, Les origines de la statique.
Paris, the place of publication, and the Librairie scientifique A.
Hermann that brought it be enough of a guarantee to prevent a very
different out, could seem to outcome. Without prompting anyone, for
some years yet, to follow up the revolutionary vistas which it
opened up, Les origines de la statique certainly revolutionized
Duhem's remaining ten or so years. He became the single-handed
discoverer of a vast new land of Western intellectual history. Half
a century later it could still be stated about the suddenly
proliferating studies in medieval science that they were so many
commentariesonDuhem's countlessfindings and observations. Of
course, in 1906, Paris and the intellectual world in general were
mesmerized by Bergson's Evolution creatrice, freshly off the press.
It was meant to bring about a revolution. Bergson challenged
head-on the leading dogma of the times, the idea of mechanistic
evolution. He did so by noting, among other things, that to speak
of vitalism was at least a roundabout recognition of scientific
ignorance about a large number of facts concerning life-processes.
He held high the idea of a "vital impetus passing through matter,"
and indeed through all matter or the universe, an impetus thatcould
be detected only through intuitiveknowledge.
If ever a major study of the history of science should have acted
like a sudden revolution it is this book, published in two volumes
in 1905 and 1906 under the title, Les origines de la statique.
Paris, the place of publication, and the Librairie scientifique A.
Hermann that brought it be enough of a guarantee to prevent a very
different out, could seem to outcome. Without prompting anyone, for
some years yet, to follow up the revolutionary vistas which it
opened up, Les origines de la statique certainly revolutionized
Duhem's remaining ten or so years. He became the single-handed
discoverer of a vast new land of Western intellectual history. Half
a century later it could still be stated about the suddenly
proliferating studies in medieval science that they were so many
commentariesonDuhem's countlessfindings and observations. Of
course, in 1906, Paris and the intellectual world in general were
mesmerized by Bergson's Evolution creatrice, freshly off the press.
It was meant to bring about a revolution. Bergson challenged
head-on the leading dogma of the times, the idea of mechanistic
evolution. He did so by noting, among other things, that to speak
of vitalism was at least a roundabout recognition of scientific
ignorance about a large number of facts concerning life-processes.
He held high the idea of a "vital impetus passing through matter,"
and indeed through all matter or the universe, an impetus thatcould
be detected only through intuitiveknowledge.
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