• Okasha’s discussion of the issue is devoted mainly to an argument against the distinction due to Grover Maxwell (1918–1981) and the reply van Fraassen might make to it. Before you go on to look at Creath, think which side you take to have the stronger position.

• Creath not only sketches an argument against van Fraassen’s position but also provides a number of quotations from van Fraassen. Creath’s argument against van Fraassen is similar to Maxwell’s in holding that there we cannot draw a sharp line between the observable and non-observable, but it is sufficiently different that it is not immediately subject to the sort of reply considered by Okasha. So again think which side has the stronger position. (Creath’s paper is short enough that you can re-read it completely; but, if you want a location to focus on, the crucial part of his argument seems to me to run from the last paragraph of p. 150 through the middle of p. 152.)

• The term “pragmatic” shows up often in Creath. You encountered before in van Fraassen’s discussion of explanation, where it concerned the use of language to ask and answer questions. The traditional meaning of the term when, as is the case with both van Fraassen and Creath, it contrasts with “semantic,” is that something is pragmatic when it concerns the relation between language and its users (while it is semantic when it concerns the relation between language and the world). Notice Creath’s use of the phrase “interests, concerns, and purposes” (or one like it) when he is speaking of something he calls “pragmatic.” If the application of a term like “observable” depends on this sort of consideration, the applicability of the term is not just a matter of the relation between language and the world but also a matter of the relation of language to the users who have these “interests, concerns, and purposes.”