Chapter 10

Question 1

what are Problems of Scientific Realism? 5

Answer 1

-Bas van Fraassen: we simply don’t know whether these things are real: agnosticism.

→ Science tells us only about what is observable to human beings → empiricist

-The aim of science: It is empirical adequacy.

-everything is permitted that is not explicitly forbidden (voluntarism)

-underdetermination: infinite number of theories all supported by data → impossible to make a distinction between which is true and which is not

Question 2

what entails Constructive Empiricism?

Answer 2

• we know that it is true for our predictions, so for what we need it for. But we don’t know whether it is actually true

-because of natural selection, theories which are empirically adequate will become the most accepted