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On the Nature and Norms of Theoretical Commitment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Paul Horwich
Paul Horwich*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract

It is not uncommon for philosophers to maintain that one is obliged to believe nothing beyond the observable consequences of a successful scientific theory. This doctrine is variously known as instrumentalism, fictionalism, constructive empiricism, theoretical skepticism and the philosophy of “as if”. The purpose of the present paper is to subject such forms of scientific antirealism to a two-pronged critique. In the first place it is argued that there is no genuine difference between believing a theory and being disposed to use it to make predictions, design experiments, and so on; so traditional instrumentalism is incoherent. In the second place, a retrenched position is considered in which theoretical belief would be tolerated but said to be justified on merely pragmatic, and not epistemic, grounds. In criticizing this point of view it is shown that the onus of proof rests on anyone who maintains it; furthermore, the only possible rationale for it (which is based on underdetermination of theory by data) is described, and various deficiencies in this argument are exposed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The first version of this paper was delivered to the Conference on Realism at Northwestern University in May, 1984. I would like to thank the participants in the subsequent discussion, and also Ned Block, Josh Cohen and Marcus Giaquinto for their valuable comments and criticism.

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