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On Rejecting Foss's Image of Van Fraassen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Warren Bourgeois
Warren Bourgeois*
Affiliation:
Kwantlen College, British Columbia
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Abstract

Foss's critique of van Fraassen's constructive empiricism is shown to be completely wide of the mark (Foss 1984, van Fraassen 1980). Foss misunderstands van Fraassen's use of the terms ‘observable’, ‘phenomena’, ‘empirical adequacy’, and ‘epistemic community’. He misconstrues constructive empiricism as making knowledge, and perhaps existence, dependent on the observer. On the basis of this error, he attempts to reduce constructive empiricism to skepticism. None of his criticisms are to the point.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 303 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am indebted to van Fraassen for comments in conversation following an earlier version of this paper delivered in reply to Foss at the World Congress in Philosophy, Montreal, Canada, August 1983. At that time, van Fraassen concurred with all my objections to Foss, but my reply has been revised to meet subsequent changes in Foss's paper. Dr. Bonnie Thurston, Prof. Edwin Levy and an anonymous reviewer have also made very helpful comments.

References

REFERENCES

Foss, J. (1984), “On Accepting van Fraassen's Image of Science”, Philosophy of Science 51: 79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, P. P. and Levy, E. (1982), review of van Fraassen 1980, Philosophy of Science 49: 290–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. (1980), The Scientific Image, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar