There exists today, an innumerable amount of theories that attempt to better our understanding of this world. Yet, some of the most intriguing theories come from the question: how does one understand a scientific theory? This is where one can break down the interpretation of theory into two distinct categories, realism and anti-realism.
Scientific realism holds two things to be true. The first is that theories should be taken literally, as science aims to paint a picture of the truth of the world. Bas Van Fraassen makes it a point to identify that this can be read incorrectly by someone who is not comfortable with realism. He explains that a na�ve person may believe that this should be interpreted as, “science tells a true story,” when it should be understood that science only aims to do so (1066, Fraassen). Scientific realism should determine that “scientific activity” is an “enterprise of discovery, as opposed to invention” which means that science should explain what already exists and not what we are creating (1065).
The second objective of realism is that, to accept a scientific theory, is to believe that it is true. This explanation is, ironically, not to be taken literally. Instead, realists understand that science is a never ending search of the truth and that it constantly gets updated and revised, retracting previous ideas with the finding of new information. Van Fraassen explains that “the task we have at this point is to find a statement of scientific realism that… does not saddle the realists with unacceptably strong consequences” (1065). From this, Van Fraassen explains that “acceptance tout court,” or the tentative acceptance of a belief to be tentatively true, is enough to fulfill this requirement (1067). From all of these ideas comes the accepted definition of scientific realism: “Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true” (1066).
Anti-realism proposes a contrasting perspective on the understanding of scientific theory. There are two branches of anti-realism, with Van Fraassen being the latter of the following. An anti-realist can either believe that scientific theories need not be understood literally or that theories need not be true in order to be considered successful. Van Fraassen’s supposition was termed “constructive empiricism,” and it is in concordance with realism that theories should be taken literally. However, a constructive empiricist believes that when a scientist makes a proposal, they “display” it with all of its credentials attached, rather than assert it to be true (1067). From this viewpoint came the accepted definition that, “Science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate; and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate” (1069).
As can be seen from the definition of constructive empiricism, “empirical adequacy” replaces the word “true” from the realist definition. A theory can be termed “empirically adequate” only if it is correct about observable bodies, which are acknowledged entities which may or may not exist. Something can be considered “observable” to humans if they can be recognized by any of our common human sensory abilities. Nowhere in constructive empiricism does truth about unobservables come into play; however, realists believe that they can make claims about unobservables as if they were observables due to the “inference to the best explanation” method. The idea behind this method can be explained simply through the mouse example employed by Van Frassen (1077). If we have not seen a mouse in our home, but everything is as it would be if there were to be a mouse in the home, then one should, logically, claim that there is a mouse in one’s home. In this way, realists believe that an unobservable can serve as an observable through inference.
At the beginning of my research, I believed that I sided with the constructive empiricists on the idea that one can only make claims pertaining to observables. I thought that, because we cannot scrutinize an unobservable entity, that that would render it to be an enigma left to be solved in the future with the help of advanced technology. However, in reading on to the “inference to the best explanation” theory, I began to waver. I believed that this seemed like a legitimate idea due mostly to the mouse example. It seemed logical that, if there were mouse droppings or chew marks on the cabinets, that there should be a mouse in the home; thereby, saying that we are able to treat observables and unobservables as one.
Yet, Van Fraassen made it a point to distinguish between “observing” and “observing that” (1072). He said that observables are only observables when one can monitor an entity with our basic human senses. I believe that this invalidates the mouse example on the basis of another of Van Fraassen’s examples, the Stone Age man. If a man from the Stone Age were to resurface and walk into the home with the chew marks on the cabinets, he would see the marks and be able to observe them; however, he would not know that it was atypical of cabinets to have markings on them. He may, in fact, believe those markings to be a part of the design of the cabinet and suspect no mouse at all. If he realized that they were bite marks, he may not know exactly what type of animal caused those markings. It would only be through learning about household rodents and insects that he could “observe that” it was a mouse that was invading that home. Because of this, I would say that, with our basic sensory skills, one cannot “observe” an unseen mouse in the home, but rather, must “observe that” there is a mouse in the home, rendering this not to be an observable at all. Because these entities cannot qualify as an observable, claims about them cannot be extrapolated to unobservables, thereby voiding the inference to the best explanation method. After doing further reading, I came across instrumentalism, which purports that unobservables are meaningless, as they can be either true or false. This strengthens my argument as both constructive empiricism and instrumentalism both agree that theories do not aim for truth about unobservables. Due to all of this, I stick with my previous conviction of siding with the constructive empiricists.