Yes, but? Some Skeptical Remarks on Realism and Anti-Realism

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, 2008

A WORTHWHILE REVIEW 648 PAGES TO BE ENJOYED ON A QUIET NIGHT OR TWO The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science is an outstanding guide to the major themes, movements, debates and topics in philosophy of science. Fifty-five entries by a team of renowned international contributors are organized into four parts: • Historical and Philosophical Context • Debates • Concepts • Individual Sciences The Companion begins with a critical examination of how philosophy of science has been involved in a mutually fruitful interaction with philosophical theories in areas such as metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language, and reassesses the major schools of philosophy of science in the twentieth century. The second part explores the development of current debates among philosophers and scientists on issues such as confirmation, explanation, realism, scientific method, and the ethics of science. Part three discusses controversial concepts such as causation, prediction, unification, observation, and probability that lie at the heart of many disputes about science and scientific theories. The final part addresses some of the main philosophical problems that arise within eight branches of science: biology, chemistry, cognitive science, economics, mathematics, physics, psychology, and the social sciences. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy of science and the connections between philosophy and the natural and social sciences. Stathis Psillos is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Athens, Greece. He is the author of Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth (Routledge), Causation and Explanation and Philosophy of Science A–Z. Martin Curd is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, USA. He is co-editor (with Jan Cover) of Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues. PART I Historical and philosophical context 1 1 The epistemology of science after Quine 3 PAUL A. ROTH 2 The history of philosophy and the philosophy of science 15 JOANNE WAUGH AND ROGER ARIEW 3 Metaphysics 26 Stephen Mumford 4 Philosophy of language 36 Rod Bertolet 5 The role of logic in philosophy of science 47 Diderik Batens 6 Critical rationalism 58 Gürol Irzik 7 The historical turn in the philosophy of science 67 ALEXANDER BIRD 8 Logical empiricism 78 Thomas Uebel 9 Pragmatism and science 91 Robert Almeder Part II Debates 101 10 Bayesianism 103 Colin Howson 11 Confirmation 115 ALAN HÁJEK AND JAMES M. JOYCE 12 Empiricism 129 Elliott Sober vi 13 Essentialism and natural kinds 139 BRIAN ELLIS 14 Ethics of science 149 David B. Resnik 15 Experiment 159 Theodore Arabatzis 16 Explanation 171 JAMES Woodward 17 The feminist approach to the philosophy of science 182 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK 18 Inference to the best explanation 193 Peter Lipton 19 Laws of nature 203 Marc Lange 20 Naturalism 213 RONALD N. GIERE 21 Realism/anti-realism 224 Michael Devitt 22 Relativism about science 236 Maria Baghramian 23 Scientific method 248 Howard Sankey 24 Social studies of science 259 ROBERT NOLA 25 The structure of theories 269 Steven French 26 Theory-change in science 281 John Worrall 27 Underdetermination 292 Igor Douven 28 Values in science 302 GERALD DOPPELT vii Part III Concepts 315 29 Causation 317 Christopher Hitchcock 30 Determinism 327 Barry Loewer 31 Evidence 337 Peter Achinstein 32 Function 349 D. M. WALSH 33 Idealization 358 James Ladyman 34 Measurement 367 HASOK CHANG AND NANCY CARTWRIGHT 35 Mechanisms 376 Stuart Glennan 36 Models 385 DEMETRIS PORTIDES 37 Observation 396 ANDRé KUKLA 38 Prediction 405 MALCOLM FORSTER 39 Probability 414 Maria Carla Galavotti 40 Reduction 425 Sahotra Sarkar 41 Representation in science 435 PAUL TELLER 42 Scientific discovery 442 Thomas Nickles 43 Space and time 452 OLIVER POOLEY 44 Symmetry 468 Margaret Morrison viii 45 Truthlikeness 478 Graham Oddie 46 Unification 489 TODD JONES 47 The virtues of a good theory 498 Ernan McMullin Part IV Individual sciences 509 48 Biology 511 Alexander Rosenberg 49 Chemistry 520 Robin FINDLAY Hendry 50 Cognitive science 531 Paul Thagard 51 Economics 543 USKALI MÄKI 52 Mathematics 555 PETER CLARK 53 Physics 567 SIMON SAUNDERS 54 Psychology 581 RICHARD SAMUELS 55 Social sciences 594 HAROLD KINCAID Index 605 THEN AS A COMPLEMENTARY READING https://www.academia.edu/2807083/In_defence_of_scientism

2005

The paper considers the two main challenges to scientific realism, stemming from confirmation holism and the underdetermination thesis as well as from semantic holism and the incommensurability thesis. Against the first challenge, it is argued that there are other criteria besides agreement with experience that enable a rational evaluation of competing theories. Against the second challenge, it is argued that at most a thesis of local incommensurability can be defended that is compatible with a minimal version of scientific realism, namely conjectural realism. However, in order to establish a fully-fledged scientific realism, one has to refute the local incommensurability thesis as well, showing how a comparison is possible on the level of the proper concepts of the theories in question. The paper examines the prospects for such a comparison, distinguishing three cases.

2006

The paper considers the two main challenges to scientific realism, stemming from confirmation holism and the underdetermination thesis as well as from semantic holism and the incommensurability thesis. Against the first challenge, it is argued that there are other criteria besides agreement with experience that enable a rational evaluation of competing theories. Against the second challenge, it is argued that

The temptation to imagine alternative historical developments of political, social, and cultural phenomena has always been a strong one. It is thus not surprising that one might try to include the history of science in this exercise and wonder whether it could have ended up differently than it actually did. Yet this attempt becomes problematic as soon as we impose epistemological conditions on the alternatives whose possibility (and plausibility) we are trying to evaluate, because, in order for the imagined scenarios to be interesting from an epistemological point of view, 1) we need to refer to an at least roughly defined specific subject-matter such as optics or high energy physics, 2) the imagined alternative histories of science must arrive to a different and yet equally successful stabilized stage, 3) they must imply some fundamental disagreement on the subject-matter in question. We are, therefore, putting heavy constraints on the alternatives we whish to consider, for most of the possible histories of science differ from our own in ways that are epistemologically uninteresting due to one or more of the following reasons: they are about the investigation of subjects other than the actual ones; they are histories of failure, not of achievement; they lead to results that are not incompatible with ours and therefore can be combined with them. The epistemological relevance of these three conditions should not be missed. Indeed, there is little epistemological interest in comparing what our science says about planets with what one might have ended up thinking about plants, or with what a bunch of fools unable to conduct any scientific research could have dreamed about planets, or, finally, with a planetology differing from ours as to the nomenclature only. Keeping this in mind, we can now turn to the relevant definitions. Contingentism, as it has been defined by Ian Hacking, 1 is the claim that the history of a particular field of science could have turned out otherwise than it actually did, and that it could have resulted in a science as successful as the actual one but, in a non-trivial way, incompatible with it. Inevitabilism consists in the denial of this claim. All crucial terms involved in this definition are affected by a certain degree of vagueness and can be defined in multiple ways, 2 but probably the trickiest of them is the term "successful". There are of course different definitions of scientific success, depending on the aim that one assigns to science. 3 Following Hacking, it is reasonable to include in the idea of scientific success a certain degree of progressiveness. However, the idea of progressiveness already implies a number of positive features that admit of improvement (such as predictive power, technical achievements, etc.). We shall see that the notion of success, along with the even thornier idea of evaluating "degrees of success" can be better analyzed while examining specific contingentist scenarios. If we believe that the history of the scientific investigation of a subject matter could have led to a stabilized stage as successful as our own, but incompatible with it, we also believe that different mutually incompatible and equally successful scientific accounts of the subject matter in question are possible. I call the latter claim the Soler, Léna (2008c) 'The Incommensurability of Experimental Practices : the Incommensurability of what ? An Incommensurability of the third-type?', In Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison.

New Approaches to Scientific Realism, , 2020

Scientific realism plays a central role in the philosophico-methodological discussions on research. There are two are the main directions in the contributions made to scientific realism: the “internal” line and the “external” path. Following the first line, there are new visions of realism focused on central aspects of science: semantic, logic, epistemological, methodological, ontological, axiological, and ethical components. When the route follows the second path, realism in science is seen as interrelated with realism in technology and as connected to a philosophical approach to society. Altogether there is now a plethora of characterizations of scientific realism, and this paper presents the main contemporary versions of scientific realism. The analysis of the central tenets of the recent views on scientific realism contributes to present this book, which offers novelty to the ongoing debate on scientific realism.