Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-21T01:54:32.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Instrumentalist's New Clothes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Darrell P. Rowbottom
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist tradition insofar as the distinction between unobservable and observable is taken to have significance with respect to meaning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 1200 - 1211
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Peter Baumann, Otávio Bueno, and Roman Frigg for comments. Thanks also to Pete Edwards for permission to use the diagram. This research was supported by the British Academy.

References

Alexander, Robert M. 1999. “Engineering Approaches to Chewing and Digestion.” Science Progress 82:171–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blanchette, Isabelle, and Dunbar, Kevin. 2000. “How Analogies Are Generated: The Roles of Structural and Superficial Similarity.” Memory and Cognition 28:108–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, Richard. 2002. “Scientific Realism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2002/entries/scientific-realism/.Google Scholar
Bressi, G., Carugno, G., Onofrio, R., and Ruoso, G.. 2002. “Measurement of the Casimir Force between Parallel Metallic Surfaces.” Physical Review Letters 88:041804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brush, Stephen G. 1968. “Mach and Atomism.” Synthese 18:192–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno, Otávio. 1999. “What Is Structural Empiricism? Scientific Change in an Empiricist Setting.” Erkenntnis 50:59–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faye, Jan. 1991. Niels Bohr: His Heritage and Legacy; An Antirealist View of Quantum Mechanics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faye, Jan. 2008. “Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/qm-copenhagen/.Google Scholar
Gentner, Dedre. 1983. “Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy.” Cognitive Science 7:155–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giere, Ronald N. 2009. “Scientific Representation and Empiricist Structuralism.” Philosophy of Science 76:101–11.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1983. Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hales, Thomas C. 2000. “Cannonballs and Honeycombs.” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 47:440–49.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Rhoda J., and McLeish, Tom C. B.. 2004. “Coarse Grained Model of Entropic Allostery.” Physical Review Letters 93:098104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jammer, Max. 1961. Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James. 1998. “What Is Structural Realism?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29:409–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamoreaux, Steve K. 1997. “Demonstration of the Casimir Force in the 0.6 to 6 μm Range.” Physical Review Letters 78:5–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mach, Ernst. 1893/1960. The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development. 6th ed. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Mach, Ernst. 1911. The History and Root of the Principle of Conservation of Energy. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Grover. 1962. “The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities.” In Scientific Explanation, Space and Time, ed. Feigl, Herbert and Maxwell, Grover, 3–27. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
McMullin, Ernan. 1984. “A Case for Scientific Realism.” In Scientific Realism, ed. Leplin, Jarrett, 8–40. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. 1843. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mohideen, Umar, and Roy, Anushree. 1998. “Precision Measurement of the Casimir Force from 0.1 to 0.9 μm.” Physical Review Letters 81:004549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagaoka, Hantaro. 1904. “Kinetics of a System of Particles Illustrating the Line and the Band Spectrum and the Phenomena of Radioactivity.” Philosophical Magazine 7:445–55.Google Scholar
Nersessian, Nancy J. 1988. “Reasoning from Imagery and Analogy in Scientific Concept Formation.” In PSA 1988: Proceedings of the 1988 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1, ed. Fine, Arthur, 41–47. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Nersessian, Nancy J.. 2002. “The Cognitive Basis of Model-Based Reasoning in Science.” In The Cognitive Basis of Science, ed. Carruthers, Peter, Stich, Stephen, and Siegal, Michael, 133–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Newton-Smith, William H. 1981. The Rationality of Science. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Psillos, Stathis. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rescher, Nicholas. 1987. Scientific Realism: A Critical Reappraisal. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1911. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 11:108–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1918. “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.” Monist 28:595–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1953. “The Cult of Common Usage.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 12:303–8.Google Scholar
Sankey, Howard. 2008. Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1958. “Proper Names.” Mind 67:166–73.Google Scholar
Shirley, John W. 1983. Thomas Harriot: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C.. 2002. The Empirical Stance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C.. 2008. Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, W. S. C. 1991. Nuclear and Particle Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 1994. Vagueness. London: Routledge.Google Scholar