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Current Trends in Philosophy of ScienceInstrumental Realism – A New Start for the Philosophy of Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science

Current Trends in Philosophy of Science: Instrumental Realism – A New Start for the Philosophy of... [Instrumental realism is a type of scientific realism which emphasizes the importance of scientific instruments for the acquisition of scientific knowledge. According to instrumental realism, we have epistemic access to reality but this access is often indirect, mediated by means of instruments. The development of science is accompanied by the introduction of new instruments which open up access to phenomena to which we had formerly lacked epistemic access. The knowledge gained by means of the new instruments usually results in the refinement of our theories. Nevertheless, sometimes the new experimental results contradict our theories and force us to engage in their correction. The results obtained by means of particular instruments are integrated, or synthesized, into a unified instrumental, linguistic and theoretical practice. We can distinguish four kinds of such synthesis – instrumental, relational, compositional and deductive. All four kinds of synthesis require idealization, which in instrumental realism is understood to be a linguistic reduction.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Current Trends in Philosophy of ScienceInstrumental Realism – A New Start for the Philosophy of Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science

Part of the Synthese Library Book Series (volume 462)
Editors: Gonzalez, Wenceslao J.
Kvasz, Ladislav
Current Trends in Philosophy of Science — Jul 26, 2022
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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
ISBN
978-3-031-01314-0
Pages
165 –188
DOI
10.1007/978-3-031-01315-7_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Instrumental realism is a type of scientific realism which emphasizes the importance of scientific instruments for the acquisition of scientific knowledge. According to instrumental realism, we have epistemic access to reality but this access is often indirect, mediated by means of instruments. The development of science is accompanied by the introduction of new instruments which open up access to phenomena to which we had formerly lacked epistemic access. The knowledge gained by means of the new instruments usually results in the refinement of our theories. Nevertheless, sometimes the new experimental results contradict our theories and force us to engage in their correction. The results obtained by means of particular instruments are integrated, or synthesized, into a unified instrumental, linguistic and theoretical practice. We can distinguish four kinds of such synthesis – instrumental, relational, compositional and deductive. All four kinds of synthesis require idealization, which in instrumental realism is understood to be a linguistic reduction.]

Published: Jul 26, 2022

Keywords: Instrumental realism; Empiricism; Wittgenstein; Pictorial form

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