The present work constitutes an attempt to make explicit those pragmatic
norms successfully operating in empirical science. I will first comment on the initial
presuppositions of the discussion, in particular, on those concerning the instrumental
character of scientific practice and the nature of scientific goals. Then I will depict
the moderately naturalistic frame in which, from this approach, the pragmatic norms
make sense. Third, I will focus on the specificity of the pragmatic norms, making
special emphasis on what I regard as a key idea underlying them, namely, the view,
vigorously advocated by classical pragmatists like C. S. Peirce and G. Vailati, that
the best test for objectivity is the test of action. Finally, I am going to put forward a
tentative list of pragmatic norms that can be abstracted from a careful observation and
analysis of scientific practice as provided by current philosophers of experimentation
(A. Franklin and F. Steinle among others). The norms will be divided into four classes
corresponding to four aspects of science in which they rule, that is, self-correction,
prediction, explanation and both experimentation and computation. In the following
account, the formulation of those pragmatic norms successfully governing science
will be understood as a contribution that scientifically-oriented pragmatism can make
to the normative naturalistic project in epistemology.
