The Scientific Image
Bas. C. van Fraassen
Abstract
This book presents an empiricist alternative (‘constructive empiricism’) to both logical positivism and scientific realism. Against the former, it insists on a literal understanding of the language of science and on an irreducibly pragmatic dimension of theory acceptance. Against scientific realism, it insists that the central aim of science is empirical adequacy (‘saving the phenomena’) and that even unqualified acceptance of a theory involves no more belief than that this goal is met. Beginning with a critique of the metaphysical arguments that typically accompany scientific realism, a new c ... More
Keywords: empirical adequacy, empiricism, explanation, logical positivism, metaphysics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, pragmatism, probability, scientific realism, theory acceptance
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 1980 | Print ISBN-13: 9780198244271 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003 | DOI:10.1093/0198244274.001.0001 |
