Epistemic Voluntarism: Rationality, Inference and Empiricism

Abstract

The work of Chapter 1 was to bring to the fore the importance of van Fraassen’s broader epistemological framework in understanding his articulation and defence of constructive empiricism. To put the point as succinctly as possible, since constructive empiricism is merely a view about the aim of science — rather than a substantive thesis about its epistemological limits — it is consistent with being a constructive empiricist to recognise any possible position with respect to the success of science in giving us knowledge about the physical world: that it aims for empirical adequacy does not in itself tell us to what extent scientific inquiry realises, falls short of or even exceeds this goal. Consequently, any argument that attempts to discredit constructive empiricism on the grounds that we have good reasons to believe that our contemporary scientific theories tell us a great deal beyond the empirically adequate simply fails to engage with the position.