Perspectives and Guidelines for Theories of (Nomic) Truth Approximation by Empirical Progress

Abstract

The account of nomic truth approximation by empirical progress presented in Chap. 2 is based on the exclusion claim of theories. It is a simplified and generalized version of the one presented in my book From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism of 2000. However, its core itself, called the basic account, is based on several idealizations. In this chapter I will sketch a number of possible concretizations, to begin with a two-sided, otherwise also basic, version, based on an exclusion and inclusion claim, followed by quantification, refinement and stratification of this two-sided version. They will be elaborated in Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7. Chapter 2 also illustrated straightforwardly how a theory of truth approximation in relation to empirical progress can be set up. The general tenet and the common elements will be summarized in this chapter. It will lead to a general outline of theories of nomic truth approximation by empirical progress. This will guide, explicitly or implicitly, the elaborating Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7. Moreover, the common core of such theories of nomic truth approximation will also be summarized: the Nomic Principle, postulating a unique divide between nomic possibilities and impossibilities, the formal structure of nomic evidence, in terms of realized (nomic) possibilities and induced generalizations, and the hypothetico-deductive background of nomic evidence.