ArgumentThis paper explores how the Belgian mathematician Paul Mansion became interested in probability theory. In comparison to many other countries at the time, probability theory had a much stronger presence in Belgium. In addition, Mansion, who was an avowed Catholic militant, had found probability theory to be a useful means of reflecting on certain problems pertaining to determinism and randomness that were arising in scientific debates at the time. Mansion’s work took place during a time of consolidation of mathematical education (...) in Belgium, as well as a new interest in probabilistic results and the foundation of the Institute for Philosophy in Louvain by his friend Désiré Mercier. The present paper addresses how these aspects intersected at the turn of the twentieth century. (shrink)

RESUMO: O objetivo deste artigo é examinar o que entendemos ser uma prova original da existência de Deus na obra de Pierre Duhem. Cremos que a originalidade dessa prova consiste especialmente nas premissas usadas pelo filósofo. Quanto à forma, a mesma assemelha-se ao conhecido argumento do desígnio, mas a sua versão se caracteriza por buscar na história das teorias físicas a matéria da qual a existência de uma Providência é derivada. É a complexa evolução das teorias e, a despeito dela, (...) a sua espantosa progressividade em direção a estágios sempre mais perfeitos que servem de premissa para a via duhemiana de acesso a Deus. Tudo se passa como se houvesse uma suposta pré-ordenação divina do curso das teorias, uma finalidade intrínseca a ele.ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to examine what we believe to be an original proof of the existence of God in the work of Pierre Duhem. We think that the originality of this proof consists especially in the assumptions used by the French philosopher in his argumentation. Regarding the form, it resembles the well-known design argument, but his version is characterized by seeking in the history of physical theories the matter from which the existence of a Providence is derived. It is the complex evolution of theories and, despite it, its amazing progress towards ever more perfect theories that serves as the premise for Duhem's way of access to God. Everything goes as if it had been a divine preordainment and an intrinsic goal ruling the evolution of theories. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s (...) illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions. (shrink)