van Fraassen, Bas

"The phenomenal world is all we can directly access and verify."

"Realism faces the problem of explaining the success of false theories."

"Science is a human activity constrained by evidence and experience."

"The universe may contain much we cannot in principle know."

"Metaphysical disputes often cannot be settled by scientific evidence alone."

"Good science requires intellectual humility about what we can truly know."

"The phenomena save the phenomena, as Aristotle said."

"Empirical success is compatible with multiple competing interpretations."

"We should accept our best theories while remaining agnostic about their truth."

"The limits of science are the limits of what we can empirically determine."

"Rational belief does not always require belief in literal truth."

"Scientific models are idealized representations of selected aspects of reality."

"The debate over scientific realism concerns what we should believe about theories."

"Empirical evidence constrains but does not uniquely determine theory choice."

"We can be instrumentalists about parts of our theories and realists about others."

"The success of science need not be evidence of its truth."

"Observable phenomena provide the ground for scientific rationality."

"Theoretical entities are different in kind from observable entities."

"We should be conservative about what we claim to know beyond experience."

"The universe is largely beyond our observational reach and understanding."

"Physics describes the structure of what we can observe and measure."

"Scientific methodology does not settle questions of metaphysical interpretation."

"We achieve empirical adequacy through pragmatic and iterative refinement."

"Belief in theoretical entities goes beyond what evidence strictly requires."

"The observable world is both constrained and opened by our theories."

"Science is a conversation with nature mediated by our conceptual schemes."

"Rationality in science involves accepting empirically adequate theories."

"We should distinguish between what science explains and what it assumes."

"The growth of scientific knowledge is not simply accumulation but transformation."

"We can achieve understanding without claiming knowledge of ultimate reality."