Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism is one of a multitude of modern schools of thought created by scientists and philosophers throughout the 20th century. It is named for its premise that theories are tools or instruments identifying reliable means-end relations found in experience, but not claiming to reveal realities beyond experience.

Quotes

 * Science is not “about” experiments; science is about the world, and experiments are part of its toolkit.
 * David Wallace, "Why the quantum state isn’t (straightforwardly) probabilistic" (November 18, 2011)