Abstract

J.J.C. Smart says that instrumentalism makes it “surprising that the world should be such as to contain these odd and ontologically disconnected phenomena…. Is It not odd that the phenomena of the world should be such as to make a purely instrumental theory true? On the other hand, if we interpret the theory in a realist way, then we have no need for such a cosmic coincidence…. A lot of surprising facts no longer seem surprising….” (Smart 1963, p. 39).Intuitively Smart seems right. The instrumentalist, who believes the observational consequences of some theory, but eschews any commitment to the theory itself, ends up believing something far less plausible than the realist, who can account for those consequences in terms of the theory.