An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

Introduction: success, change, and empiricism

Scientists pose questions about the world and, in some sense, they succeed in arriving, however tentatively, at answers. In this chapter we ask how we should understand that success. In particular, should we think of scientific inquiry as a project aimed at revealing a true description of the world, even when that description involves things that we cannot possibly see, hear, touch, taste, or smell? Or should we consider scientists to be engaged in a search for theories that are simply in some way useful?

On the one hand, the ways in which scientists are sometimes successful would be, some philosophers argue, inexplicable or miraculous unless it were the case that they have accepted some theories that are (at least approximately) true. The approximate truth of some of their theories is the best explanation of certain successes that scientists have enjoyed. Scientific realism maintains that we should regard empirically successful theories in the mature sciences (like physics, chemistry, and biology) as at least approximately true because this is the best explanation of the success of those theories.

On the other hand, we have seen how theories can change in science in dramatic and unexpected ways. A theory might even seem to enjoy tremendous success, only to be replaced by a theory with a radically different conception of the basic entities responsible for the phenomena in its domain.