Instrumentalism (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that a concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality. The instrumentalism of Ernst Mach was criticized by Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of pragmatism (and later pragmaticism). Peirce emphasized that a supposition of reality and truth seems to be the only way to explain scientific progress and to justify the scientific practice of seeking explanations of regularities in better theories. In particular, Peirce explained that unobservable objects had an important role in science, as long as their existence yields in principle empirical consequences that could be tested (in principle).