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The Instrumentalist's New Clothes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Darrell P. Rowbottom
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Abstract

This article develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist tradition insofar as the distinction between unobservable and observable is taken to have significance with respect to meaning.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 1200 - 1211
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Peter Baumann, Otávio Bueno, and Roman Frigg for comments. Thanks also to Pete Edwards for permission to use the diagram. This research was supported by the British Academy.

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