Rowbottom, Darrell P. (2010) The Instrumentalist's New Clothes. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

This paper develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist tradition in so far as the distinction between unobservable and observable is taken to have significance with respect to meaning.

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Rowbottom, Darrell P. Darrell.Rowbottom@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Subjects:	General Issues > Operationalism/Instrumentalism General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User:	Dr Darrell P. Rowbottom
Date Deposited:	04 Nov 2010 16:37
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2010 16:37
Item ID:	8370
Subjects:	General Issues > Operationalism/Instrumentalism General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date:	20 October 2010
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8370

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