Abstract

Scientific theories do much more than answer empirical questions. This can be understood along empiricist lines only if those other aspects are instrumental for the pursuit of empirical strength and adequacy, or serving other aims subordinate to these. This chapter accordingly addresses four main questions: Does the rejection of realism lead to a self‐defeating scepticism? Are scientific methodology and experimental design intelligible on any but a realist interpretation of science? Is the ideal of the unity of science, or even the practice of using distinct theories in conjunction, intelligent on an empiricist view? What sense can an empiricist position accord to those theoretical virtues––such as simplicity, coherence, explanatory power––that are not reducible to empirical strength or adequacy? The answers to these questions rely strongly on the pragmatics of scientific inquiry, and advocate a ‘Clausewitz doctrine’ of experimentation as a continuation of theorizing by other means.