SYNOPSIS

As a summary of my topic, Van Fraassen advocated a position that he called

‘’constructive empiricism,” a view intended to capture the insights of logical empiricism while
avoiding its defects. It is the version of scientific anti-realism in which science aims to give us
theories which are empirically adequate and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it
is empirically adequate.

Constructive empiricism incorporates a prior commitment to the rationality of science—it

is a doctrine about what the aim of science actually is; it is not attempting to present a
revisionary account of how science should be done. According to the doctrine that the aim of
science is truth about what’s been observed, there would be no scientific reason for someone to
do an experiment which would generate a phenomenon that had never been observed before. But
one of the hallmarks of good scientists is that they perform experiments pushing beyond the
limits of what has been observed so far.

The constructive empiricist can hence conclude that the doctrine that the aim of science is
truth about what’s been observed “fails to capture our idea of what it is to do good science”.

So the constructive empiricist is firm in her construal of the aim of science as truth about
the observable. One might worry, though, as James Ladyman (2000) does, that such a view
brings with it a commitment to modal realism and belief in whatever entities such a commitment
may require. So, for instance, talk of observability might commit the constructive empiricist to
belief in the existence of possible worlds, a commitment that an empiricist would prefer not to
make.

The constructive empiricist might reply to relativity by insisting that while we must look
to science for an account of observability, observability is not a theory-dependent notion. What
counts as observable is an objective, theory-independent fact. So there’s no danger of relativism
about empirical adequacy.

This response only addresses relativity; the objectivity of observability does not save us
from the epistemic circularity that comes about from our having to use a theory of observability
as the standard of empirical adequacy by which we assess that theory’s own empirical adequacy.
The epistemic circularity has to do with how we come to certain beliefs about observability, not
with the objectivity of the observability facts.
REFLECTION

Honestly speaking, I’m having so much difficult time on making a synthesis paper. I
don’t know where to find a good topic and the due date is fast approaching. I don’t know where
to start or how to start it. I’m having a hard time just thinking about this paper. Then, it drove me
to laziness. I do really hate paper works since my childhood days. That’s why I much preferred
numbers. I chose this topic because I have no choice. This is only the topic that went up to my
mind. Van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, it sounds good for me.

All I understand in this topic is that it is based on scientific antirealism promulgated by

Bas van Fraassen in his famous book “The Scientific Image (1980).”

The centered topic here is that science aims to give us theories which are empirically
adequate.

Constructive empiricism is the view that (a) science aims to produce theories that are
empirically adequate rather than true, where a theory is empirically adequate precisely if what it
says with respect to the observable phenomena (those entities and processes that can be directly
observed by the unaided human eye) is true; and (b) that to accept a theory involves no more
belief than that it is empirically adequate.

By making this synthesis paper I’ve just learned that reading more sources and books are
somewhat interesting. It helps me to increase my knowledge on philosophy and its significance
on our real life.