42 T H E O R I E S A N D T H IN G S

theoretical fruitfulness unless it has the structure

of a P i theory;
( 2) That in practice all theories of any value
do have this structure, because if they are not
explicitly of P i form (as, for instance, is the
kinetic theory of gases) they contain metaphor­
ical terms which give the theory a hidden or
implicit PI structure ;
(g) That in either case-the parent situation
and model together or the secondary p.c.p.
which gives a term its metaphorical force-the
essence of theoretical fruitfulness is that the
theory should suggest the existence and sketch
the character of mechanisms in regions previ­
ously inaccessible and lead to model-proving
experiments to investigate them .
Whichever way you look at the construction
of model-based theories, or theories with meta­
phorical terms, the logical structure turns out
to be necessarily in accordance with Principle
P i , and so the possibility of doing science
according to Principle P2 is an illusion. Apply­
ing our modus-tollens argument again, we can
conclude that because the positivist principle
leads to too narrow a view of theory construc­
tion we must reject it.

4. EXISTENCE-CLAIMS
The substance of my argument in Section 3
can be represented as follows :
( I ) If positivism is correct we cannot make
the move from model to mechanism, for we
 EXISTENCE- C LAIMS 43
can't treat the concepts of the model as having
empirical force. It follows from this that:
( 2) There cannot be any genuine ontological
experiments. But we have established that there
are ontological experiments; at least in the
sense that on experimental grounds we change
from treating a model as a work of the imagina­
tion and treat it as a mechanism.
( 3 ) By denying (2) we in effect deny a con­
sequence of ( I ) and hence, by our modus-to/lens
argument, we can conclude that positivism is
not correct.
We must now go on to look more closely at
the ontological claims which we make on the
basis of our models. What sort of criteria do we
have to use to settle the question of the existence
of something originally introduced as part of an
imaginary or hypothetical mechanism? To find
out what criteria we use we must investigate
the logical structure of existence-claims, and
investigate too what criteria we use to decide
whether something is or is not an object.
There are two traditional lines of argument
in this field which I should like to repudiate to
begin with. I shall argue:
(i) That epistemology (the general theory of
knowledge) is irrelevant to the philosophical
enterprise of establishing the legitimacy of onto­
logical experiments-that is, experiments de­
signed to prove that something does or does not
exist.
(ii) That general discussions of whether the
entities mentioned in a theory exist are useless,