Enter your search terms Submit search form

Instrumentalism, standing in stark contrast to the Scientific Realism that dominates the times, offers insight into our theories and research that characterize the paradigm shifts which will come in our children’s generation.

What is Instrumentalism? Fundamentally, it is the philosophy of science that denies scientific theories any ontological status.  That while scientific theories are excellent tools, they do not, and can not, be REAL in any meaningful sense of the term.  Proponents argue that the great thinkers such as Newton and Einstein have all been instrumentalists, and that by holding this understanding of science allowed them to step outside the dogma that mainstream science operates under.  It is NOT anti-science in any way, and it recognizes that technological innovations occur when men operate under this scientific dogma.

A good starting point to understanding instrumentalism lies with recognizing the importance of the Duhem Thesis (Wikipedia link) and the underdetermination of physical theories.  It states:

For any given physical phenomena, there are in innumerable number of possible explanations for that phenomena.

What this says is that there are an arbitrary number of theories that a scientist can come up with which all explain the same natural events.  It is a result of induction as a mode of inquiry.  While this is historically obvious, we have a hard time applying these standards to our current theories.

This website will look at the anomalies that creep into our science.  The anomalies that point the way to future change in the fundamentals of our theories.