Constructive Empiricism and the Closure Problem

Abstract

In this paper I articulate a fictionalist solution to the closure problem that affects constructive empiricism. Relying on Stephen Yablo's recent study of closure puzzles, I show how we can partition the content of a theory in terms of its truthmakers and claim that a constructive empiricist can believe that all the observable conditions that are necessary to make a part of her theory true obtain and remain agnostic about whether or not the other truthmakers for the other parts of her theory obtain. This can be done even though she asserts her theory as if it was wholly true. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.