QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

esulting from experience, so-called Critical Realism found the idea of conceptual preconditions
for empirical knowledge acceptable. At the same time, these conceptual systems are seen as
historically-developing and being consciously changeable, something which makes it possible to
relinquish Kant’s agnosticism. Humans are not imprisoned by their fixed cognitive apparatus,
they can, through scientific investigation, attempt to gain more perfect and more accurate
knowledge of reality from “things as such”. 364
As a result of the criticism of Positivism and the development of new tools, modern analytic
tradition has been freed from many of the traditional restraints and obligations and many
advocates of scientific realism have adopted a radical ”Anti-Positivist” view of the general
nature of scientific theories. The Empiricist and Descriptivist view of scientific language turned
out to be too confining when, for example, dispositional concepts could not be directly converted
into observational terms. Claims of this type were alleviated by stating that scientific language
could also accept terms which could be reduced to observational terms via explicit definitions
and reductive statements. Hempel and Carnap liberalised this thinking to the dual-level theory of
scientific language, according to which it was sufficient that some theoretical terms were
connected to observationals term in a logical manner via a general proposition. In this way,
scientific theory was understood to be a partly-interpreted formal system. This way of thinking
did, however, result in problems since unambiguous criteria that could be used to separate
theoretical terms from observational terminology did not exist. That which was observed
depended on the experimental equipment being used by the observer, the conceptual system they
were using, and their background knowledge. Observations were seen as theory-laden and
proving the correctness of theories became problematical. 365
Empiricism is no longer necessarily accepted, even in the modified form that Hempel and
Carnap developed in the 1950s. Giving up the thesis of Semantic empiricism does, however,
create new challenges when explicating problems concerning the interpretation of theoretical
terms. According to Scientific Realism, theories are attempts to obtain knowledge concerning
reality, and as such, they are true or untrue propositions whose truth must somehow be
established. Via Descriptivism or Instrumentalism, problems connected with the interpretation of
theoretical terms can be eliminated by concentrating only on their ”function” or their operation in
science. If the task of science is viewed in a unilateral manner as the control of practical
operations, the simple conclusion is Methodological instrumentalism. There is no need to take
364 Niiniluoto 1980, 144.
136