There has been an empiricist tradition in the core of Logical Positivism/Empiricism, starting with Moritz Schlick and ending
in Herbert Feigl (via Hans Reichenbach), according to which the world of empiricism need not be a barren place devoid of all
the explanatory entities posited by scientific theories. The aim of this paper is to articulate this tradition and to explore
ways in which its key elements can find a place in the contemporary debate over scientific realism. It presents a way empiricism
can go for scientific realism without metaphysical anxiety, by developing an indispensability argument for the adoption of
the realist framework. This argument, unlike current realist arguments, has a pragmatic ring to it: there is no ultimate argument for the adoption of the realist framework.
Keywords Scientific realism – Empiricism – Metaphysics – Realist framework – Schlick – Feigl
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science,
Bristol, July 2007; the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of Ghent, December 2007; and the Workshop ‘Theoretical
Frameworks and Empirical Underdetermination, University of Düsseldorf, April 2008. A number of friends and colleagues have
helped me with incisive comments and criticism; here is an incomplete list of them: Dirk Batens, Steven French, Michael Friedman,
Michel Ghins, James Ladyman, Robert Nola, David Papineau, Juha Saatsi, Gerhard Schurz, Ioannis Votsis, Erik Weber and John
Worrall. Many thanks to all (as well as to an anonymous referee for Synthese).