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How do antirealists explain the successful predictions made by scientific theories?
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Philosophy of science
Aristotle, marble portrait bust, Roman copy (2nd century bce) of a Greek original (c. 325 bce); in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome.
Antirealists in the philosophy of science offer several perspectives to explain the success of scientific theories without committing to the claim that those theories are literally true.12
- Empirical Adequacy: Philosophers like Bas van Fraassen argue that the goal of science is not to uncover hidden truths, but to construct theories that are "empirically adequate"—meaning they successfully capture and predict observable phenomena. From this view, a theory's success is simply a result of scientists designing models specifically to "save the phenomena," requiring no belief in the existence of unobservable entities.12
- Instrumentalism: This view treats theories as useful tools or "instruments" for generating predictions rather than as descriptions of reality. Instrumentalists argue that a theory's value lies solely in its inferential reliability and its ability to solve practical problems.13
- Pessimistic Induction: Larry Laudan challenged the realist "ultimate argument" by pointing to the history of science. He noted that many past theories were highly successful yet are now considered false and refer to nothing in nature. This suggests that predictive success is not a reliable indicator of a theory's truth.23
- Questioning Explanatory Power: Antirealists argue that realists "beg the question" by assuming that because a theory explains success, it must be true. They maintain that explanatory power does not inherently equate to truth.2