van Fraassen, Bas

"To avoid overreach, science should confine itself to claims about observable phenomena."

"The humility of constructive empiricism is also its strength."

"We know the world as it appears to us, not as it is in itself."

"Scientific models are sophisticated devices for organizing and predicting experience."

"The empirical method is our most reliable guide, but it has limits."

"Realism about unobservables asks us to go beyond what rational caution permits."

"The coherence of experience is a stronger ground for belief than metaphysical certainty."

"Scientific success is compatible with multiple metaphysical interpretations."

"The phenomena are what we can responsibly claim to understand."

"Theoretical virtues like simplicity may guide us without guaranteeing truth."

"Our access to reality is always mediated by our conceptual and experiential frameworks."

"The constructive empiricist embraces scientific knowledge while rejecting speculative metaphysics."

"Experience-centered epistemology avoids the pitfalls of both naive realism and radical skepticism."

"Science advances when we focus on what works rather than what is absolutely true."

"The mysteries science leaves unsolved may be better left as mysteries."

"Empirical adequacy is a more defensible standard than truth for scientific theories."

"We should value science for what it can do, not for metaphysical claims it cannot justify."

"The boundary between science and speculation is marked by empirical testability."

"Acknowledging the limits of knowledge is a sign of intellectual maturity."

"Scientific understanding is always provisional and subject to revision."

"The phenomena exhaust what we can claim to know with justification."

"Realism commits us to believing in things we can never observe or verify."

"Our theories are best understood as responses to experience, not descriptions of reality."

"The gulf between epistemology and metaphysics cannot be easily bridged."

"Science at its best is humble about its claims beyond the observable."

"The empiricist tradition offers a more cautious and defensible approach to knowledge."

"We should accept theories for their empirical success, not their metaphysical ambitions."

"The apparent conflict between different scientific worldviews often dissolves when properly understood."

"Experience is both our starting point and our ultimate arbiter in science."

"Scientific realism overstates what the evidence justifies believing."