PARTIAL CONVERGENCE AND APPROXIMATE TRUTH

Scientific Realists (SRs) argue that it would be a miracle if scientif ic theories were getting more predictive without getting closer to the truth; so they must be getting closer to the truth. Van Fraassen, Lau dan et al. argue that owing to the underdetermination of theory by dat a (UDT) for all we know, it is a miracle, a fluke. So we should not be lieve in even the approximate truth of theories. I argue that there is a test for who is right: suppose we are at the limit of inquiry. Supp ose that we then have all the logically possible theories that are ade quate to all the actual data. If they all resembled in their theoretic al claims, since one of them must be true, all of them would then rese mble it, whichever it is. We would thus be justified in saying they al l approximated the truth in the degree to which they co-resembled. If they don't all co-resemble, the SRs are wrong; more predictive theorie s are not necessarily closer to the theoretical truth. Prior to the li mit, if, in spite of our best efforts to the contrary, all the theorie s we can make adequate to current data tend to co-resemble, we have in ductive warrant for thinking more predictive theories are closer to th e truth. if they don't resemble, we have inductive warrant for thinkin g that more predictive theories are not necessarily closer to the trut h.