AN EMPIRICIST REGARDING SCIENCE, AN EMPIRICIST REGARDING REPRESENTATION

Abstract

It probably goes without saying that the advent of a new book by Bas van Fraassen is a major event in the world of philosophy of science. Indeed, Scientific Representation does not disappoint. It is full of interesting and erudite discussions, and presents controversial arguments with which philosophers of science will want to come to grips. There are two ways in which one could review a book like this. One could just go through it step by step, and highlight the key discussions and arguments. Or one could look at the book through the lens of van Fraassen's previous work in philosophy of science, and focus on the things he says which directly relate to his previous work. I shall take the latter approach. Van Fraassen is famous for promulgating a version of scientific anti‐realism known as constructive empiricism, the doctrine which holds that the aim of science is to give us theories which are empirically adequate, and that acceptance of a theory involves a belief only that it is empirically adequate.1 This was van Fraassen's characterization in The Scientific Image of how an aspiring empiricist like him should understand science. While he is still a constructive empiricist, he has more to say about how an empiricist should understand science, and he delivers it in parts of Scientific Representation.