Abstract

SAMANO DAVILA, José Gustavo. Instrumentalism and Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. Rev. filos.open insight [online]. 2020, vol.11, n.21, pp.135-159.  Epub June 05, 2023. ISSN 2395-8936.  https://doi.org/10.23924/oi.v11i21.366.

James Clerk Maxwell unified the experimental laws of electricity and magnetism within a single theory which simplified the image of both kinds of phenomena. However, Maxwell himself created hypotheses that would have hardly accepted by his contemporary people. With instrumentalist and pragmatics arguments, Maxwell delivered his theories by years. Despite the purely instrumental origin of his theories, it would be almost impossible now not to accept that the electromagnetic theory is a real description of the electric and magnetic phenomena, which makes this an interesting example of the scientific realism controversy.

Keywords : Experimental Laws; Instrumentalism; Phenomena; Realism; Theories.