Outline of Video Sixteen: "Does Science Give Us Truth?", Sept. 18

• Correspondence Theory: truth is the relation between statements or thoughts and extramental reality
• Scientific realism: theories are true if they describe reality
• Einstein: our task is to find out the truth about nature, even if that means changing the basic presuppositions of our theories
• Problem: not all true propositions (e.g., those in logic) are descriptions
• Coherence Theory: a proposition or belief is true if it is coherent with other beliefs
• Popper/Kuhn: there is no one truth because there is nothing "really out there." This is not relativistic, because it insists that a theory is true if it meets the requirements of science (simplicity, comprehensiveness, predictive)
• Pragmatic Theory: truth happens to ideas or beliefs in virtue of their practical application
• Scientific instrumentalism: theories are instruments that are useful for calculating and predicting; this is especially applicable in quantum theory (Bohr)
• The search for Truth (capital T) perhaps needs to be replaced with the search for multiple truths