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Ground Truth and Virtual Reality: Hacking vs. Van Fraassen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William Seager
William Seager*
Affiliation:
Scarborough College University of Toronto
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Abstract

Hacking argues against van Fraassen's constructive empiricism by appeal to features of microscopic imaging. Hacking relies on both our practices involving imaging instruments and the structure of the images produced by these micropractices. Van Fraassen's reply is formally correct yet fundamentally unsatisfying. I aim to strengthen van Fraassen's reply, but must then extend constructive empiricism, specifically the central notion of “theoretical immersion.” I argue that immersion is more analogous to entering a virtual reality than to learning a language. This metaphor assimilates instrument-based practice as well as theoretical debate and explanation, and can provide an anti-realist view of our micro-practices consonant with constructive empiricism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 459 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Division of Humanities, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1C 1A4.

‡

I would like to thank the philosophers and historians at the University of Alberta, Dalhousie University and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto for their kind reception of this paper and their helpful comments. An anonymous referee for this journal also deserves thanks for pressing several objections from a realist standpoint the responses to which have, I hope, led to the clarification of my position.

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