Should the empiricist be a constructive empiricist?

Philosophy of Science 68 (4):413-431 (2001)
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Abstract

Van Fraassen does not argue that everyone should be a constructive empiricist. He claims only that constructive empiricism (CE) is a coherent post-positivist alternative to realism, notwithstanding the realist's charge that CE is arbitrary and irrational. He does argue, however, that the empiricist is obliged to limit belief as CE prescribes. Criticism of CE has been largely directed at van Fraassen's claim that CE is a coherent option. Far less attention has been directed at his claim that empiricists should be constructive empiricists. I consider his various attempts to support this claim, conclude that they are unsuccessful, and suggest that the empiricist who repudiates CE does not thereby abandon contemporary empiricism itself

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Author's Profile

Marc Alspector-Kelly
Western Michigan University

References found in this work

Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
The ways of paradox, and other essays.Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.) - 1976 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Laws and Symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 182 (3):327-329.
.Peter Railton - 1985 - Rowman & Littlefield.

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