The Scientific Image (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) [Paperback]

Bas. C. van Fraassen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 1980 | ISBN-10: 0198244274 | ISBN-13: 978-0198244271 | Edition: Reprint

In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An excellent extreé to the current debates on this topic, as seen by van Fraassenn who is probably the most direct and severe opponent of scientific realism."--Review of Metaphysics

"A most useful and stimulating book. It brings together some of the main strands in the 'dialectic' of post-positivist analytic philosophy, and moreover, it does this with lucidity, charm, erudition, and great intelligence....Would make an excellent text for a middle to upper-level course in contemporary philosophy of science."--Journal of Philosophy

"Would make an excellent introduction to the philosophical issues clustering around scientific realism for undergraduates if set in conjunction with the recent realist literature.

"Important not only for its contributions to special topics such as the theory of explanation and the use of probability, but important also for its detailed and sustained critique of scientific realism."--Philosophy of Science

About the Author

Bas C. Van Fraassen is at Princeton University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Reprint edition (October 2, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198244274
• ISBN-13: 978-0198244271
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a philosopher, and in recent years I have been preoccupied with two philosophical questions, one about philosophy itself, and one about science,
"What Is Empiricism, and What Could It Be?" and "What is Scientific Representation?" I've offered an answer to the first in my book The Empirical Stance, and tackled the second in a book I finished anno 2008, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective.

Most of my work as a philosopher has been in philosophy of science and in philosophical logic, but with occasional forays into philosophy of literature and the connections between art, literature, and science. Like most philosophers (I think) I began with the ambition to arrive at a coherent view of everything -- some day, within my lifetime -- and I am still cherishing that idea ...

Is there a general basic empiricist position within which I address philosophical questions? I have tried to address this (admittedly many-sided) question in various places, but if I am to indicate just one, it should be "Literate Experience: The [De-, Re-] Construction of Nature" (2000), which is available on the abstracts & manuscripts page on my website http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An attack on then and still fashionable scientific realism. October 29, 1997

By Aaron Boyden

Format:Paperback

Bas van Fraassen rejects the current trend in philosophy of science toward scientific realism. In this book, he advocates something he calls constructive empiricism as an alternative; his constructive empiricism has a neo-positivist feel to it, but the development of his own position is not the most interesting aspect of this book. His criticisms of scientific realism, which really form the heart of the work, are extremely detailed, forceful, and interesting; they present a challenge which, after a decade and a half, scientific realists have yet to meet.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully important book November 9, 2003

By Timothy Huegerich

Format:Paperback

This is a must read for anyone wishing to sincerely engage in philosophy of science. It should change the way you think about science, but it does not deny anything essential to science. Just so you know, Van Fraassen is a Catholic, so he does seem to believe in unobservable entities, though he denies that empirical science as it is commonly understood can tell us anything about them directly.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The role of models in science October 19, 2012

By A reader

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

From van Frassen's perspective, science is concerned with the development of scientific models for understanding and controlling reality. The model does not have to be 'true', as the believers in scientific realism seem to believe, but it has to be testable against empirical evidence. The success of science should not and cannot be explained by refering to how current knowledge is closer to the truth, but by the fact that our models are better at explaining and predicting. When space probes report data about planets beyond our solar system, they are not explaining the 'truth', they are providing data that we can use for improving our models of the universe. Scientific theories contain statements about scientific models, not about the 'real world'. Truth is a concept that applies to logic and mathematics, and makes little sense for discussing the real world. What is important in science is the validity of the models being used, which van Fraasen describes as whether the models are empirically adequate or not.