Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:00:05.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the Radical Incompleteness of the Manifest Image

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Bas C. van Fraassen*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto and University of Southern California

Extract

In my discussion of Sellars I have said as little as possible about my own position. But I think I should just mention that the descriptions of instrumentalists by Professors Sellars and Cornman do not fit me. That is why I would prefer the term “anti-realist”.

To my mind, theoretical entities are fictions. To explain this, let me draw an analogy. Suppose someone writes a short story about a quarrel between a man and a cat. There may be or have been in the world, somewhere, a man and a cat who quarrelled, and who are by and large just like the characters in the story. This possibility is quite irrelevant to what the author is doing, and to our evaluation of the story. Of course, it keeps us from saying categorically that all short stories are false; but this too is quite irrelevant.

Type
Part VI. Is Scientific Realism Tenable?
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

Research for this paper was supported by the Canada Council.

References

[1] Sellars, Wilfrid. “Is Scientific Realism Tenable?In PSA 1976, Volume Two. Edited by Suppe, F. and Asquith, P.D.. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1977. Pages 307334.Google Scholar
[2] Sellars, WilfridConcepts as Involving Laws and Inconceivable Without Them.” Philosophy of Science 15(1948): 287315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] van Fraassen, B.Wilfrid Sellars on Scientific Realism.” Dialogue 14(1975): 606616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] van Fraassen, B.Rejoinder: On a Kantian Conception of Language.” In The Paradox of the Liar. Edited by Martin, R.L.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Page 5966.Google Scholar