O empirismo construtivo e o argumento de Musgrave: um problema ou um pseudoproblema?¹

Abstract

In 1985, Alan Musgrave raised a serious objection against the possibility that a constructive empiricist could coherently draw the distinction between observables and unobservables. In his brief response in the same year, Bas van Fraassen claimed that Musgrave’s argument only works within the so-called ‘syntactic view’ of theories, while it loses its force in the context of the ‘semantic view’. But this response was not adequate, or so claimed F. A. Muller, who published two articles (2004 and 2005) in order to extend the epistemology of constructive empiricism. In order to do so, Muller provided a rigorous characterization of observability that requires the use of modal logic. The outcome was a new (extended) epistemology for constructive empiricism, which van Fraassen apparently endorsed (cf. Muller & van Fraassen 2008). As will be shown in this article, however, Muller’s extended epistemology is superfluous. Moreover, and more importantly, Musgrave’s argument seems to be a pseudo-problem.

Keywords:
Constructive empiricism; Epistemology; Observability; Musgrave’s problem; Bas van Fraassen