ABSTRACT
Natural science is defined by its goal structure: its task is to answer our questions about the world in a way that provides for description, explanation, prediction, and control. For pragmatism, this comes down to the question of the success of science in realizing its goals. The relative pragmatic efficacy of scientists' implementation of the theses they validate is seen as an index of the relative acceptability of alternative systematic methods of inquiry and substantiation. The argument thus breaks apart into two stages, with a crucial methodological level inserted as mediating link between pragmatic efficacy and truth. The mediation of methodology—of a layer of considerations at the epistemological level—always intervenes between pragmatic considerations and considerations regarding the acceptability of factual claims. The possibility of a pragmatically successful exploitation of the instrumentalities afforded to humans by nature is surely compatible with the most profound ignorance of the workings of things.
