 Instrumentalism is usually contrasted with realism as a view of science (see entry on  scientific realism).  The contrast is often taken to depend on opposing views of the content, aims, and epistemic reach of scientific theories. Crudely, the realist takes theoretical statements to be either true or false of the world, science to aim at theories that truly describe the world, and theories of mature science to have given us increasingly reliable and accurate knowledge even of things we can’t observe: While the instrumentalist takes theoretical statements to be neither true nor false of the world, science to aim only at theories that accommodate and predict our observations, and theories even in mature science to have given us increasingly reliable and accurate predictions only of things we can observe.