What can Bas believe? Musgrave and van Fraassen on observability

Abstract

There is a natural objection to the epistemic coherence of Bas van Fraas sen's use of a distinction between the observable and unobservable in his constructive empiricism, an objection that has been raised with particular clarity by Alan Musgrave. We outline Musgrave's objection, and then consider how one might interpret and evaluate van Fraassen's response. According to the constructive empiricist, observability for us is mea sured with respect to the epistemic limits of human beings qua measuring devices, limitations 'which will be described in detail in the final physics and biology' (van Fraassen 1980: 17). In order for the constructive empiricist to determine what counts as observable, he will have to appeal to our best scientific theories of light, human physiology, and so forth. To put the same point in a slightly more abstract way, in order to draw a distinction between observable and unobservable entities, the constructive empiricist needs to use his best scientific theory of observability call it T* to tell him the identity of the observable entities. This raises an interesting difficulty. Constructive empiricism is the view that 'science aims to give us theories that are empirically adequate; and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it is empirically ade quate' (van Fraassen 1980: 12). When he accepts a theory, the constructive empiricist only believes the statements of his scientific theories that are about observable entities. Thus, in order to know which statements of a scientific theory to believe, the constructive empiricist needs to know which statements of that theory are about observable entities. In particu lar, then, the constructive empiricist only believes the statements of his theory of observability T* that are about observable entities. Therefore, in order to know which statements of T* he can believe, the constructive