The manifest image and the scientific image

Bas C. van Fraassen

pp. 29-52

in: Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Ernest Mathijs (eds), Einstein meets Magritte: an interdisciplinary reflection, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

Let me begin with a question: how well does science represent the world? How well does it describe nature, us, and our relation to nature? Does it give an adequate, exact, accurate picture, which shows what there is in the world and what it is like?