ABSTRACT
Pragmatic instrumentalism is best understood as a naturalistic account of scientific inquiry, not an ontological thesis meant to draw a line between elephants and electrons. Theories as wholes—not merely their more rarified, abstract, or non-observational parts—are tools. Pragmatic instrumentalism runs all the way down as well as all the way up. The motivating theme of this essay is to show the advantages adopting such an instrumentalist stance has over standard accounts of inquiry that focus on the pursuit and acquisition of propositional knowledge. I will not here attempt to challenge directly the core notions of belief, truth, and justification that underlie the S knows that P model. Rather I will argue for the superiority of the pragmatic approach in handling several longstanding epistemological puzzles. Each of these puzzles is concerned with issues relating to our understanding of probabilistic justification. I must warn, though, that I am not going to offer solutions to these problems as they are usually conceived and in the specific contexts in which they are traditionally discussed. Instead, I wish to show why from a pragmatic instrumentalist perspective the puzzles pose no difficulties that cannot be dealt with or profitably dodged. I hope that consideration of such advantages may help loosen the grip the traditional account of inquiry has in epistemology.
