Pragmatism and Empirical Adequacy

One reference is compulsory: Exploring Humans: An introduction to the philosophy of the social sciences. by Hans
Dooremalen, Merman De Regt and Maurice Schouten. (Section 10 and section 11)

According to Bas van Fraassen, we should distinguish between empirical adequacy and truth: different theories can
give different explanations of the same observations, such that each is empirically adequate, while only one of
them can be true (section 10.5 from Exploring Humans). Van Fraassen argues that rational agents are free to decide
which empirically adequate theory they want to believe in such a case (section 10.6), an argument that he traces
back to the pragmatism of William James (section 11.8). But does the distinction between truth and empirical
adequacy make sense from the pragmatist point of view? As is explained in chapter 11, the answer of the pragmatist
Peirce would be “no”, whereas the answer of James would be “yes”. Which of the two is right?
Explain the basic idea of pragmatism and argue on the basis of that idea whether you think that truth is the same
as empirical adequacy or not. You are free to use either examples from economics or from another branch of science
if you so prefer (if you always wanted to write an essay about viruses or subatomic particles then this is your
chance).
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