more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 6778

[filed under theme 14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism ]

Full Idea

Instrumentalism is so called because it regards theories not as attempts to describe or explain the world, but as instruments for making predictions; for the instrumentalist, asking about the truth of a theory is a conceptual mistake.

Gist of Idea

Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant

Source

Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)

Book Ref

Bird,Alexander: 'Philosophy of Science' [UCL Press 2000], p.125

A Reaction

It cannot be denied that theories are used to make predictions, and there is nothing wrong with being solely interested in predictions. I cannot make head or tail of the idea that truth is irrelevant. Why is a given theory so successful?

The 14 ideas with the same theme [scientific truth is just what works in our theories]:

18982 Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James]
18985 True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James]
7621 Special relativity, unlike general relativity, was operationalist in spirit [Putnam on Einstein]
13940 All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap]
17665 The 'Tractatus' is instrumentalist about laws of nature [Wittgenstein, by Armstrong]
17658 Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman]
4713 For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady]
13067 For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon]
14204 Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam]
16057 Instrumentalism normally says some discourse is useful, but not genuinely true [Horgan,T]
17704 Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares]
6778 Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant [Bird]
22197 Theories aren't just for organising present experience if they concern the past or future [Gorham]
22196 For most scientists their concepts are not just useful, but are meant to be true and accurate [Gorham]