Alternatives to Scientific Realism, Misc

Donald Hoffman proposed a bold theory—that objects do not exist independently of us perceiving them and that all that really exists is conscious agents. In this critical review, Leslie Allan examines the three core components of Hoffman's new idealism. He proposes solutions to linguistic absurdities suffered by Hoffman's theory before considering its most serious problems. These include oversimplifications of evolutionary theory, self-refutation, heuristic sterility and dependence on scientific realism.

This is a brief conceptual analysis of the limitations of 'scientific' empiricism which I tried to convey without any possible scientific or philosophical jargon which are commonly used by scientists or philosophers and which are difficult for others to understand. The terms which appear as jargon here do not need to be understood literally as they are supposed to convey mere examples rather than meaning.

This paper examines the debate between Marilyn Strathern and I.C. Jarvie. Writing in 1987, Strathern argues that the time is ripe for reincorporating Sir James Frazer. Jarvie thinks Strathern does so in a way that treats revolutions in anthropology as not involving scientific progress. There is a familiar defence against this charge while pursuing the same, or much the same, line of argument.

In earlier work, I criticized de Regt’s contextual theory of understanding, and advertised the advantages of my own, knowledge-based account. Using the early history of the standard model in particle physics as an illustration, I instead consider the benefits of unifying these two accounts of understanding. I argue that de Regt’s account substantially improves my own account of explanatory consideration, and that my account of explanatory comparison substantially improves upon his account of explanatory evaluation. De Regt and my apparent disagreement (...) about the so-called factivity of understanding is defused through a voluntaristic approach to the scientific realism debates. (shrink)

In this paper we explore Ronald N. Giere’s contributions to the scientific realism debate. After outlining some of his general views on the philosophy of science, we locate his contributions within the traditional scientific realism debate. We argue that Giere’s scientific perspectivism is best seen as a form of carte blanche realism, that is: a view according to which science is a practice aiming at truth, and can warrantably claim to have attained it, to a certain degree; however, it does (...) not place our confidence invariably in some specific feature of scientific representations. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s definition of the relationship between thoughts and facts is well known, but the question of how Mach conceived of their actual relationship has received much less attention. This paper aims to address this gap in light of Mary B. Hesse’s view of a postempiricist approach to natural science. As this paper will show, this view is characterized by a constructivist conception of the relationship between theory and facts that seems to be consistent with Mach’s observations on scientific knowledge. (...) The paper first explores Hesse’s account of postempiricism and her project of a new epistemology. It then considers Ernst Mach’s conception of facts as the middle term of a triad of concepts that includes thoughts and elements as extreme terms. Finally, the paper will offer concluding remarks on Mach’s contribution to the debate on scientific realism and his attempt to redefine the notions of correspondence and objectivity in science. (shrink)

The special theory of relativity holds significant interest for scientific perspectivists. In this paper, I distinguish between two related meanings of “perspectival,” and argue that reference frames are perspectives, provided that perspectival means “being conditional” rather than “being partial.” Frame-dependent properties such as length, time duration, and simultaneity, are not partially measured in a reference frame, but their measurements are conditional on the choice of frame. I also discuss whether the constancy of the speed of light depends on perspectival factors (...) such as the idealized definition of the speed of light in a perfect vacuum and the Einstein synchronization convention. Furthermore, I argue for the view that the constancy of its speed is a robust property of light according to the conditions of currently acceptable experimental setups pertaining to special relativity, and conclude that this view supports perspectivism. (shrink)

I’m grateful to Aleta Quinn and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science for hosting this book forum for my book, The Relativity of Theory (Springer, 2020). I’m also grateful to Margaret Greta Turnbull and Joseph Martin for their commentaries. In what follows, I address their comments as I understand them.

Several metaphysical naturalists argue that the success of science, together with the claim that scientists adhere to methodological naturalism, amounts to strong evidence for metaphysical naturalism. I call this the scientific-success argument. It is argued that the scientific-success argument is similar to the no-miracles argument for realism in philosophy of science. On the no-miracles argument, the success of science is taken as strong evidence that scientific theories are true. Based on this similarity, some considerations relevant to one argument may also (...) be relevant to the other. One particular consideration is explored. The selectionist response to the no-miracles argument states that on an evolutionary model of science, in which scientific theories are accepted only after surviving a rigorous selection process, the no-miracles argument fails. The selectionist response also applies to the scientific-success argument. If scientific theories are selected for success, we do not need to explain the success of science by appealing to metaphysical naturalism. (shrink)

Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening is often credited as being one of the first works to focus on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, catalyzing a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” or “new experimentalism”. In the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also began focusing on the role of experimentation and instruments in science. Philosophical study of experimentation has thus seemed to be an invention of the 1980s whose central figure is Hacking. (...) This article aims to assess this historical claim, made by Hacking himself as well as others. It does so first by highlighting how a broader perspective on the history of philosophy reveals this invention narrative to be incorrect, since experimentation was a topic of interest for earlier philosophers. Secondly, the article evaluates a revision of this historical claim also made by some philosophers of experiment: the rediscovery narrative, which frames Hacking and others as having rediscovered the work of these earlier authors. This second narratives faces problems as well. Therefore we develop a third narrative which we call the contextualist narrative. Rather than considering experimentation in an essentialist manner as a fixed research object that is either present or not in the work of specific authors, experimentation should be addressed through a narrative that asks in what way it becomes a philosophical problem for certain authors and for what purpose. Such contextualization enables a repositioning of Hacking’s philosophy of experiment in relation to the specific debates in which he intervened, such as the realism-antirealism debate, the Science Wars and the debate on incommensurability. (shrink)

I've previously suggested that the historical evidence used to challenge scientific realism should lead us to embrace what I call Uniformitarianism, but many recently influential forms of scientific realism seem happy to share this commitment. I trace a number of further points of common ground that collectively constitute an appealing Middle Path between classical forms of realism and instrumentalism, and I suggest that many contemporary realists and instrumentalists have already become fellow travelers on this Middle Path without recognizing how far (...) they have thereby diverged from those who share their labels and slogans. I conclude by describing their central remaining disagreement and the sorts of evidence needed to resolve it. (shrink)

Lyons’s (2003, 2018) axiological realism holds that science pursues true theories. I object that despite its name, it is a variant of scientific antirealism, and is susceptible to all the problems with scientific antirealism. Lyons (2003, 2018) also advances a variant of surrealism as an alternative to the realist explanation for success. I object that it does not give rise to understanding because it is an ad hoc explanans and because it gives a conditional explanation. Lyons might use axiological realism (...) to account for the success of a theory. I object that some alternative axiological explanations are better than the axiological realist explanation, and that the axiological realist explanation is teleological. Finally, I argue that Putnam’s realist position is more elegant than Lyons’s. (shrink)

La vida en el laboratorio. La construcción social de los hechos científicos (Latour y Woolgar, 1979) sostiene que los hechos y las entidades cuya existencia ha sido establecida por la ciencia no son descubrimientos sino “construcciones sociales” llevadas a cabo por los científicos mediante “versiones” o “explicaciones ordenadas” al establecer acuerdos (“cierres de controversias”). Se sostiene, siguiendo la terminología de la filosofía de la ciencia actual, que este argumento es una forma de antirrealismo científico lingüístico, tesis sustentada también por autores (...) como Richad Rorty, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn y Ludwik Fleck, que es inconsistente y que confunde niveles de lenguaje, porque al referirse metalingüísticamente a las teorías, “versiones” o descripciones científicas no diferencia entre cosas metafísicamente diferentes: la existencia (o la inexistencia) de una entidad o un hecho, y la creencia compartida o la descripción de la existencia (o la inexistencia) de esa entidad o ese hecho. Ello lo lleva a cometer el error categorial de atribuir características del lenguaje (como la de explicar o la de ser usado) a cosas que no son lingüísticas (como la naturaleza o un hecho). Si bien tanto la versión de Latour y Woolgar como las demás no diferencian entre que un conjunto de personas crean que existe lo que la ciencia afirma y las propias afirmaciones de la ciencia sobre lo que existe, ambas cosas ocurren en la realidad social, por lo que el argumento constructivista –tal como el de Goodman de que una constelación ha sido creada mediante una versión, el de Kuhn de que “los conceptos” “conforman el mundo al que se aplican” o el de que los hechos y las teorías no son categóricamente separables, el de Fleck de que la sífilis no existe independientemente de las representaciones lingüísticas de la medicina o el de Rorty de que el color de la piel de un dinosaurio depende de la descripción científica sobre él, por ejemplo-, en la medida en que niega la existencia independiente de esos hechos y entidades no es más que una forma actual de lo que se llamó idealismo metafísico, en la que no se considera como entidad primitiva las “ideas” o estados de conciencia sino hechos de sociedad humana como las afirmaciones y los significados científicos y las creencias que generan en las personas. (shrink)

Review of The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism by Juha Saatsi (ed.).

In this paper, I respond to Sterpetti’s attempt to defend Kyle P. Stanford’s Problem of Unconceived Alternatives and his New Induction over the History of Science from my reductio argument outlined in Mizrahi :59–68, 2016a). I discuss what I take to be the ways in which Sterpetti has misconstrued my argument against Stanford’s NIS, in particular, that it is a reductio, not a dilemma, as Sterpetti erroneously thinks. I argue that antirealists who endorse Stanford’s NIS still face an absurd consequence (...) of this argument, namely, that they should not believe their own brand of scientific antirealism. (shrink)

In A Realist Theory of Science, Roy Bhaskar provides several transcendental arguments for critical realism – a position Bhaskar himself characterized as transcendental realism. Bhaskar provides an argument from perception and from the intelligibility of scientific experimentation, maintaining that transcendental realism is necessary for both. I argue that neither argument succeeds, and that transcendental idealism can better vindicate scientific practice than Bhaskar’s realism. Bhaskar’s arguments against the Kantian view fail, for they misrepresent the transcendental idealist position. I conclude that, if (...) they wish to retain their theoretical commitments, critical realists ought to be transcendental idealists. (shrink)

In last part of his life, Kuhn claimed that he is a post-Kantian in many aspects. This paper aims to inquire the post-Kantian thesis of Kuhn from two paths. One is metaphors in science, and the other is Kuhn's theory of concepts. Following Andersen, Barker and Chen , who apply the new results of cognitive psychology (particularly, the frame model of concept representation), I propose a reinterpretation of Kuhn' s latest philosophy of science.

In this paper, I argue that the “positive argument” for Constructive Empiricism (CE), according to which CE “makes better sense of science, and of scientific activity, than realism does” (van Fraassen 1980, 73), is an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). But constructive empiricists are critical of IBE, and thus they have to be critical of their own “positive argument” for CE. If my argument is sound, then constructive empiricists are in the awkward position of having to reject their own (...) “positive argument” for CE by their own lights. (shrink)

According to Bas van Fraassen, scientific realists and anti-realists disagree about whether accepting a scientific theory involves believing that the theory is true. On van Fraassen’s own anti-realist empiricist position, accepting a theory involves believing only that the theory is correct in its claims about observable aspects of the world. However, a number of philosophers have argued that acceptance and belief cannot be distinguished and thus that the debate is either confused or trivially settled in favor of the realist. In (...) addition, another set of philosophers have argued that van Fraassen’s empiricist position appeals to an unmotivated distinction between observable and unobservable aspects of the world. This paper aims to reconstruct a van Fraassen-style empiricism about scientific acceptance that avoids these two objections – reconstructed empiricism. (shrink)

Saatsi’s minimal realism holds that science makes theoretical progress. It is designed to get around the pessimistic induction, to fall between scientific realism and instrumentalism, and to explain the success of scientific theories. I raise the following two objections to it. First, it is not clear whether minimal realism lies between realism and instrumentalism, given that minimal realism does not entail instrumentalism. Second, it is not clear whether minimal realism can explain the success of scientific theories, given that it is (...) doubtful that theoretical progress makes success likely. In addition to raising these two objections, I develop and criticize a new position that truly falls between realism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

Scientific realists and antirealists believe that a successful scientific theory is true and merely empirically adequate, respectively. In contrast, epistemic reciprocalists believe that realists’ positive theories are true, and that antirealists’ positive theories are merely empirically adequate, treating their target agents as their target agents treat other epistemic agents. Antirealists cannot convince reciprocalists that their positive theories are true, no matter how confident they might be that they are true. In addition, reciprocalists criticize antirealists’ positive theories exactly in the way (...) that antirealists criticize their epistemic colleagues’ theories. Reciprocalism is a better epistemic policy than realism and antirealism in the epistemic battleground in which we strive to be epistemically safe vis-à-vis our epistemic colleagues’ theories and strive to convince our epistemic colleagues that our theories are true. (shrink)

Extensional scientific realism is the view that each believable scientific theory is supported by the unique first-order evidence for it and that if we want to believe that it is true, we should rely on its unique first-order evidence. In contrast, intensional scientific realism is the view that all believable scientific theories have a common feature and that we should rely on it to determine whether a theory is believable or not. Fitzpatrick argues that extensional realism is immune, while intensional (...) realism is not, to the pessimistic induction. I reply that if extensional realism overcomes the pessimistic induction at all, that is because it implicitly relies on the theoretical resource of intensional realism. I also argue that extensional realism, by nature, cannot embed a criterion for distinguishing between believable and unbelievable theories. (shrink)

Realism and surrealism claim, respectively, that a scientific theory is successful because it is true, and because the world operates as if it is true. Lyons :891–901, 2003) criticizes realism and argues that surrealism is superior to realism. I reply that Lyons’s criticisms against realism fail. I also attempt to establish the following two claims: Realism and surrealism lead to a useful prescription and a useless prescription, respectively, on how to make an unsuccessful theory successful. Realism and surrealism give the (...) credit for the success of a theory to an appropriate factor and to an inappropriate factor, respectively. Finally, I point out that surrealism is vulnerable to my pessimistic induction :3–21, 2014a) against antirealism. (shrink)

As the debate between realists and empiricists in the philosophy of science drags on, one point of consensus has emerged: no one wants to be a manifestationalist. The manifestationalist is a kind of radical empiricist who argues that science provides theories that aim neither at a true picture of the entire world, nor even an empirically adequate picture that captures the world in all its observable respects. For manifestationalists, science aims only at providing theories that are true to the observed (...) aspects of reality. If the guiding idea of empiricism is that experience, and experience alone, provides us with knowledge about the world, then manifestationalism is an exceptionally strict empiricist perspective on science. Manifestationalism has primarily served within a reductio: certain empiricist views and arguments, when taken to their logical conclusion, lead to manifestationalism and so cannot be correct. The reductio works only because manifestationalism is widely agreed to be a non-starter. However, this consensus against manifestationalism is based on a single argument. We contest this assessment of manifestationalism and show that the primary argument against manifestationalism fails to hit its target. We do not intend to offer a manifesto for manifestationalism. Rather, we aim to vindicate it from a false accusation. Manifestationalism may not be the correct view of science, but the objections levied against it so far can be met. (shrink)

Scientific realism (Putnam 1975; Psillos 1999) and relative realism (Mizrahi 2013) claim that successful scientific theories are approximately true and comparatively true, respectively. A theory is approximately true if and only if it is close to the truth. A theory is comparatively true if and only if it is closer to the truth than its competitors are. I argue that relative realism is more skeptical about the claims of science than it initially appears to be and that it can explain (...) neither the success nor the failure of science. Hence, it is not a promising competitor to scientific realism. (shrink)

Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we explain a (...) phenomenon in terms of a theory we do not believe. (shrink)

Naturalised realism’ is presented as a version of realism which is more compatible with the history of science than convergent or explanationist forms of realism. The account is unpacked according to four theses: 1) Whether realism is warranted with regards to a particular theory depends on the kind and quality of evidence available for that theory; 2) Reference is about causal interaction with the world; 3) Most of science happens somewhere in between instrumentalism and scientific realism on a continuum of (...) stances towards the status of theories; 4) The degree to which realism is warranted has something to do with the degree to which theories successfully refer, rather than with the truth of theories. (shrink)

El Realismo Crítico Auténtico (RCA) sostenido por Uskali Mäki se distingue del Realismo Crítico de Lawson. En el marco del Realismo Mínimo se explicitará qué es el RCA y se presentará el Realismo Posible de los modelos económicos en su versión MISS. Se diferenciará el Realismo Mínimo del Realismo Científico Standard. Se desarrollarán las dificultades en torno al RCA.

El presente trabajo intenta profundizar en la noción de mecanismo en el Realismo Crítico de Tony Lawson. Penetraremos en la naturaleza de los mecanismos en este autor. Señalaremos su importancia para conocer el reino social, transformarlo y reorientar la economía. Mostraremos algunas dificultades presentes en la propuesta de Lawson en torno a esta noción: acerca de la viabilidad de una teoría económica para los sistemas abiertos; sobre el valor explicativo de los transfácticos y las posibilidades de conocer los mecanismos.

In this article, through a critical examination of K. Brad Wray's version of the argument from underconsideration against scientific realism, I articulate a modest version of scientific realism. This modest realist position, which I call ‘relative realism’, preserves the scientific realist's optimism about science's ability to get closer to the truth while, at the same time, taking on board the antirealist's premise that theory evaluation is comparative, and thus that there are no good reasons to think that science's best theories (...) are close to the truth. (shrink)

This paper proposes to carve out a new position in the scientific realism/antirealism debate and argue that it captures some of the most important realist and some of the most important antirealist considerations. The view, briefly stated, is that there is always a fact of the matter about whether the singular statements science gives us are literally true, but there is no fact of the matter about whether the non-singular statements science gives us are literally true. I call this view (...) singularist semirealism. Singularist semirealism sides with scientific realism with regards to singular statements but it is an antirealist view with regards to non-singular statements. In this sense, singularist semirealism could be considered to be ‘the best of both worlds’. 1 Introduction2 Truth and Correctness3 Property-Tokens and Property-Types4 Singularist Semirealism5 Encouragement from Actual Scientific Practice6 Some Potentially Worrying Consequences of Singularist Semirealism7 Some Promising Consequences of Singularist Semirealism8 Conclusion: Theory Change. (shrink)

Se analizará en este texto la noción de aislamiento en el Realismo Crítico de Tony Lawson y su relación con su posición frente al uso de los modelos económicos mainstream para acceder al mundo social. Distinguiremos las nociones de abstracción y aislamiento en este autor. Mostraremos la irreductibilidad de las mismas y que la consideración de la complejidad de la realidad social se relaciona con su posición sobre el rol del aislamiento para llegar a ella.

Tony Lawson, fundador del Grupo de Ontología Social y del Taller Realista de Cambridge, ha propuesto el realismo crítico para reorientar la economía. La transformación del mundo social, que intenta Lawson, surge de la adhesión al realismo crítico, esto es, de trasladar el realismo trascendental de Roy Bhaskar al reino social. Con el propósito de profundizar en las críticas a este movimiento, explicitaremos en qué consiste el realismo crítico, y cuáles son los presupuestos filosóficos de la mainstream según este autor. (...) Plantearemos las críticas en torno a: a) la noción de economía mainstream, b) las posibilidades de una economía fundada en la ontología social, c) el realismo de los modelos económicos y d) las nociones de aislamiento y abstracción. (shrink)

Joseph Rouse has drawn from Heidegger’s early philosophy to develop what he calls a “practical hermeneutics of science.” With this, he has not only become an important player in the recent trend towards practice-based conceptualisations of science, he has also emerged as the predominant expositor of Heidegger’s philosophy of science. Yet, there are serious shortcomings in both Rouse’s theory of science and his interpretation of Heidegger. In the first instance, Rouse’s practical hermeneutics appears confused on the topic of realism. In (...) the second instance, Rouse suppresses Heidegger’s distinction between existence and essence, and hence fails to grasp the latter’s corollary distinction between scientic research and everyday practice. I argue that, by accepting a correction in his interpretation of Heidegger, Rouse would find the means to resolve the debilitating tensions in his stance towards realism. (shrink)

This essay critically examines Joseph Rouse's arguments against, what he dubs, the "legitimation project", which are the attempts to delimit and justify the scientific enterprise by means of global, "a priori" principles. Stipulating that a more adequate picture of science can be obtained by viewing it as a continuously transforming pattern of situated activities, Rouse believes that only by refocusing attention upon the actual practice of science can philosophers begin to detach themselves from the irresolvable epistemological problems that have remained (...) the primary byproduct of the traditional philosophical approach. On closer inspection, however, Rouse's project appears susceptible to the criticism that it is either too relativistic to do the work he envisioned for it, or that it participates in the very same legitimation venture that it was intended to replace (in addition to its own brand metaphysical/epistemological problems). This unexpected outcome, moreover, suggests that such legitimation projects may be an integral component of the very practice of science, contrary to Rouse estimate. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years.