Table Of ContentCLARENDON LIBRARY OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
General Editor: L. Jonathan Cohen
THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGE
The Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy brings together
books, by new as well as by established authors, that combine
originality of theme with rigour of statement. Its aim is to
encourage new research of a professional standard into problems
that are of current or perennial interest.
Also published in this series
Quality and Concept by George Bealer
The Probable and the Provable by L, Jonathan Cohen
The Diversity of Moral Thinking by Neil Cooper
The Metaphysics of Modality by Graeme Forbes
Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals by R. G. Frey
The Logic of Aspect: An Axiomatic Approach by Antony Galton
Relative Identity by Nicholas Griffin
Ontological Economy by Dale Gottlieb
Equality, Liberty, and Perfectionism by Vinit Haksar
Experiences: An Inquiry into some Ambiguities by J. M. Hinton
The Fortunes of Inquiry by N. Jardine
Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem by Michael E. Levin
The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation by J. L. Mackie
Truth, Probability, and Paradox by J. L. Mackie
The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga
Divine Commands and Moral Requirements by P. L. Quinn
Simplicity by Elliott Sober
The Logic of Natural Language by Fred Sommers
The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne
The Emergence of Norms by Edna Ullmann-Margalit
Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism by Peter Unger
The Matter of Minds by Zeno Vendler
What is Existence? by C. J. F. Williams
Works and Worlds of Art by Nicholas Wolterstorff
THE
SCIENTIFIC
IMAGE
BAS C. VAN FRAASSEN
CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD
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© Bas C. van Fraassen 1980
First published 1980
Reprinted 1983, 1985, 1987
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Van Fraassen, Bas C.
The scientific image.—(Clarendon library of logic and philosophy)
1. Science—Philosophy
I. Title
501 Q175 79-42793
ISBN 0-19-824427-4 Pbk.
Printed and bound in
Great Britain by Biddies Ltd.
Guildford and Kings Lynn
To the friendly people of Tigh-na-Coille
•'Vif
Preface
THE aim of this book is to develop a constructive alternative to
scientific realism, a position which has lately been much discussed
and advocated in philosophy of science. To this end, I shall present
three theories, which need each other for mutual support. The first
concerns the relation of a theory to the world, and especially what
may be called its empirical import. The second is a theory of
scientific explanation, in which the explanatory power of a theory is
held to be a feature which does indeed go beyond its empirical im-
port, but which is radically context-dependent. And the third is an
explication of probability as it occurs within physical theory (as
opposed to: in the evaluation of its evidential support). The first
two chapters form a brief and relatively popular introduction to the
debates concerning scientific realism, and will thereby explain the
organization and strategy of the remainder. I have kept the exposi-
tion non-technical throughout, referring for technical details to
journal articles where they seem to me more rightfully to belong.
My debts are numerous; many of them will be clear from the
notes. I would like to add here a few personal acknowledgements.
My greatest debt in philosophy of science has always been to Adolf
Griinbaum : this debt was renewed when I attended his lecture on
Dirac's electrodynamics at Santa Margharita in 1976, a paradigm
of philosophical exposition of science which I can scarcely hope to
emulate. To Glymour, Hooker, Putnam, Salmon, Smart, and Sellars
I owe the debt of the challenge of their philosophical positions and
their willingness to discuss them with me, both on public occasions
and in personal correspondence. The title of this book is a phrase of
Wilfrid Sellars's, who contrasts the scientific image of the world with
the manifest image, the way the world appears in human observa-
tion. While I would deny the suggestion of dichotomy, the phrase
seemed apt. Toraldo di Francia gave me the opportunity to take
part in the Fermi Institute Summer School on Foundations of
Physics in Varenna, where I learned a great deal, not least from his
and Dalla Chiara's lectures on their theory of the structure of
physics. An older debt recalled in writing various parts of this book
is to Henry Margenau, from whom I learned much about prob-
viii PREFACE
abilities and states in quantum mechanics. Many friends and col-
leagues helped at various stages during the writing of this book by
reacting, at once sympathetically and ruthlessly, to my arguments,
ideas, and didactic stories; Paul Benacerraf, Nancy Cartwright,
Ronald de Sousa, Hartry Field, Yvon Gauthier, Ronald Giere,
Karel Lambert, Edwin Levy, Margot Livesey, Hugh Mellor, Ben
Rogers, Richmond Thomason, and Roger Woolhouse, to mention
only a few. The main theses of this book were presented in lectures
at a number of occasions, the last before press being three lectures
at Princeton University in May 1979. Finally, the aid of the Canada
Council in support of the research projects during which this book
took shape was invaluable, especially in facilitating the contacts with
other scholars necessary for that research.
B. C. v. F.
July, 1979
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. ARGUMENTS CONCERNING SCIENTIFIC
REALISM 6
§1. Scientific Realism and Constructive Empiricism 6
§1.1 Statement of Scientific Realism 6
§1.2 Alternatives to Realism 9
§1.3 Constructive Empiricism II
§2. The Theory/Observation 'Dichotomy' 13
§3. Inference to the Best Explanation 19
§4. Limits of the Demand for Explanation 23
§5. The Principle of the Common Cause 25
§6. Limits to Explanation: a Thought Experiment 31
§7. Demons and the Ultimate Argument 34
3. TO SAVE THE PHENOMENA 41
§1. Models 41
§2. Apparent Motion and Absolute Space 44
§3. Empirical Content of Newton's Theory 46
§4. Theories and their Extensions 47
§5. Extensions: Victory and Qualified Defeat 50
§6. Failure of the Syntactic Approach 53
§7. The Hermeneutic Circle 56
§8. Limits to Empirical Description 59
§9. A New Picture of Theories 64
4. EMPIRICISM AND SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY 70
§1. Empiricist Epistemology and Scepticism 71
§2. Methodology and Experimental Design 73
§2.1 The Roles of Theory 73
§2.2 Measuring the Charge of the Electron 74
§2.3 Boyd on the Philosophical Explanation of
Methodology 77
§2.4 Phenomenology of Scientific Activity 80
§3. The Conjunction Objection 83
X CONTENTS
§4. Pragmatic Virtues and Explanation 87
§4.1 The Other Virtues 87
§4.2 The Incursion of Pragmatics 89
§4.3 Pursuit of Explanation 92
5. THE PRAGMATICS OF EXPLANATION 97
§1. The Language of Explanation 97
#1.1 Truth and Grammar 97
§1.2 Some Examples 101
§2. A Biased History 103
§2.1 Hempel: Grounds for Belief 103
§2.2 Salmon: Statistically Relevant Factors 106
§2.3 Global Properties of Theories 109
§2.4 The Difficulties: Asymmetries and Rejections 111
§2.5 Causality: the Conditio Sine Qua Non 112
§2.6 Causality: Salmon's Theory 118
§2.7 The Clues of Causality 123
§2.8 Why-questions 126
§2.9 The Clues Elaborated 129
§3. Asymmetries of Explanation : A Short Story 130
§3.1 Asymmetry and Context: the Aristotelian Sieve 130
§3.2 The Tower and the Shadow' 132
§4. A Model for Explanation 134
§4.1 Contexts and Propositions 134
§4.2 Questions 137
§4.3 A Theory of Why-questions 141
§4.4 Evaluation of Answers 146
§4.5 Presupposition and Relevance Elaborated 151
§5. Conclusion 153
6. PROBABILITY: THE NEW MODALITY OF SCIENCE 158
§1. Statistics in General Science 159
§2. Classical Statistical Mechanics 161
§2.1 The Measure of Ignorance 161
§2.2 Objective and Epistemic Probability
Disentangled 164
§2.3 The Intrusion of Infinity 167
§3. Probability in Quantum Mechanics 169
§3.1 The Disanalogies with the Classical Case 170
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