The insidiously enchanted forrest : essay review of ‘Scientific Representation’ by Bas C. van Fraassen

Abstract

Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (henceforth: Representation), B. C. van Fraassen's most recent, 400pp. contribution to the philosophy of science, is contemporary, varied, systematic, historical, exciting, provocative, empiricist, pragmatist, profound, sketchy and accessible. We ground these judgments subsequently whilst treating most of the topics of Representation in more detail. Contemporary, Varied. A new book by Van Fraassen! What is it? Another massive attack on realism in the philosophy of science, as in The Scientific Image (Van Fraassen, 1980 B.C. Van Fraassen, The scientific image, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1980).1980)? A new acerbic treatment of analytic metaphysics, as in Laws and Symmetry(1989) and in The Empirical Stance (2002)? The long-awaited treatise on voluntaristic epistemology, as outlined in Laws and Symmetry? Further historical explorations of philosophical traditions, as in The Empirical Stance? Back to logic without existential import, as in Derivation and Counterexample (1972)? Forget it all.