Intentionality Versus Constructive Empiricism

By focussing on the intentional character of observation in science, we argue that Constructive Empiricism—B.C. van Fraassen’s much debated and explored view of science—is inconsistent. We then argue there are at least two ways out of our Inconsistency Argument, one of which is more easily to square with Constructive Empiricism than the other. 1 The Inconsistency Argument We shall argue that there is a tension if not an inconsistency between B.C. van Fraassen’s well-known view of science, Constructive Empiricism (CE), and his less well-known view on intentionality. In this opening Section, we collect a number of premises (mostly from CE) and expound an argument in favour of the inconsistency of CE that will set the stage of this paper; then we provide an outline of this paper. The distinction between observable and unobservable concrete objects (events, processes, facts) is one of the conceptual pillars of CE. For one thing, the doxastic policy of CE to believe only those accepted propositions of science that are about F. A. I. Buekens Tilburg University and University of Leuven, K. Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] F. A. Muller (&) Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burg. Oudlaan 50, H5-10, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] F. A. Muller Department of Physics and Astronomy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands 1 See Fraassen (1980, 1989, 1985); books devoted to CE: Hooker and Churchland (1985), Monton (2007). 123 Erkenn (2012) 76:91–100 DOI 10.1007/s10670-011-9348-1