This brilliant essay by Duhem isolates and describes the cause of the rift between physical science and metaphysics as the proposed means of discovering explanations for phenomena …"The one who contributed most to break down the barrier between physical

This brilliant essay by Duhem isolates and describes the cause of the rift between physical science and metaphysics as the proposed means of discovering explanations for phenomena. Here Gallileo and his papal adversaries, Descartes and Newton in conflict; and throughout the keen observation of a genius in awe of the really mysterious nature of material things …"The one who contributed most to break down the barrier between physical method and metaphysical method, and to confound their domains, so clearly distinguished in the Aristotelian philosophy, was surely Descartes. Descartes’ method calls into doubt the principles of all our knowledge and leaves them suspended on this methodological doubt until it can reach the point of demonstrating the legitimacy of principles by a long chain of deductions stemming from the famous Cogito, ergo sum.

"Nothing is more contrary than such a method to the Aristotelian conception, according to which a science, such as physics, rests on self-evident principles whose nature is investigated by a metaphysics which cannot increase their certainty."