JERZY GIEDYMIN

INSTRUMENTALISM AND ITS CRITIQUE:

A REAPPRAISAL

The main objection against various empiricist and - in particular -

positivist doctrines in 19th- and 20th-century philosophy of science has
been that they unduly restrict theorizing: as descriptive accounts of
natural and social science they refuse scientific status to various theories
which many would normally count as science; as programmes for research
they impose on theorizing limitations which would hamper the develop-
ment of certain theories and in this way - so some argue - stifle the
progress of science. In addition, they branded as nonsense or - at least -
as empirically meaningless various metaphysical speculations. Since
apart from philosophers also many scientists have indulged in such
speculations, it is felt that not only vital components of traditional
philosophy but also of science have thus been ostracised To be sure, very
few of those empirically minded scientists and philosophers of science
wanted to dispense with or ban theories altogether and to restrict
science to the 'empirical basis' and empirical generalizations. Either
because they felt that few scientists would want to be deprived of the
'theoretician's paradise', or because they appreciated (with Poincare)
that "theoretical physics is a fact to be explained" or else because they
saw the philosopher's role as descriptive rather than prescriptive, they
have usually ruled against the ban on theories invoking an ancient clause
in the epistemologist's legislature known in various forms as instru-
mentalism (formalism, anti-realism, etc.~ The intended effect of that
clause is that those theoretical terms and sentences which do not satisfy
certain definite requirements in terms of relations to observables (trans-
latibility into observables in the extreme case of phenomenalism, descrip-
tivism or positivism; increase in predictive power of the theory in the case
of more liberal empiricist doctrines) are acknowledged as components
of scientific theories with the status of formal symbols, metaphors, useful
fictions, instruments, etc. In contemporary social sciences (economics, in
particular) the instrumentalist clause would allow so-called 'models'
apart from proper empirical theories as well as theories based on "un-

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180 JERZY GIEDYMIN

realistic assumptions".l This piece of liberal legislation has not been

appreciated at all by recent 'antipositivist' critics of those empiricist
doctrines, for it seems to those critics that it does not take theorizing
sufficiently seriously and, consequently, grants theoreticians too great
freedom blurring the boundary between science and fiction Thus modern
empiricism has been blamed by its various critics for being intolerant
and at the same time too permissive.
The aim of the present essay is to re-examine some recent accounts and
critical assessments of the instrumentalist tradition in natural science
and its philosophy. I shall claim that those accounts are descriptively
inadequate, that the instrumentalist tradition comprised many doctrines
and that its leading representatives, usually criticised, held much more
moderate instrumentalist views than attributed to them and that the
unqualified condemnation of instrumentalism is, in this light, unjustified
I shall also argue that the view of science (or its programmatic counter-
part) formed within the instrumentalist tradition has in many respects
anticipated the views of science advocated by contemporary critics of
instrumentalism as 'progressive', 'critical', 'tolerant'.
I shall first report two accounts and assessments of instrumentalism
given by Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend, respectively. Then I shall
try to show their inadequacy with respect to the instrumentalist tradi-
tion in astronomy and its philosophy and with respect to 19th-century
conventionalism.

1. Two VIEWS CONCERNING INSTRUMENTALISM AND ITS

EFFECT ON NATURAL SCIENCE

Perhaps the earliest and strongest condemnation of instrumentalism in

contemporary philosophy of science came from Sir Karl Popper. It was
made in the context of the philosophy of the natural sciences, primarily
of physics and astronomy.
Popper contrasted three views concerning the status of physical
theories, essentialism, instrumentalism and 'the third view', realism com-
bined with fallibilism (hypotheticism1 which is also Popper's own view. 2
Essentialism, which originated in Aristotle's philosophy and shared its
age-old influence on science and philosophy, asserts that (a) the aim of