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  1. That’s Not IBE: Reply to Park.Yunus Prasetya - 2022 - Axiomathes 32 (2):621-627.
    Park (2017, 2018, 2019) argues that Bas van Fraassen uses inference to the best explanation to defend his contextual theory of explanation. If Park is right, then van Fraassen is in trouble because he rejects IBE as a rational rule of inference. In this reply, I argue that van Fraassen does not use IBE in defending the contextual theory of explanation. I distinguish between several conceptions of IBE: heuristic IBE, objective Bayesian IBE, and ampliative IBE. I argue that van Fraassen (...)
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  • Inference to the Best Explanation and van Fraassen’s Contextual Theory of Explanation: Reply to Park.Yunus Prasetya - 2021 - Axiomathes 32 (2):355-365.
    Seungbae Park argues that Bas van Fraassen’s rejection of inference to the best explanation (IBE) is problematic for his contextual theory of explanation because van Fraassen uses IBE to support the contextual theory. This paper provides a defense of van Fraassen’s views from Park’s objections. I point out three weaknesses of Park’s objection against van Fraassen. First, van Fraassen may be perfectly content to accept the implications that Park claims to follow from his views. Second, even if van Fraassen rejects (...)
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  • The realist and selectionist explanations for the success of science.Seungbae Park - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-12.
    According to realists, theories are successful because they are true, but according to selectionists, theories are successful because they have gone through a rigorous selection process. Wray claims that the realist and selectionist explanations are rivals to each other. Lee objects that they are instead complementary to each other. In my view, Lee’s objection presupposes that the realist explanation is true, and thus it begs the question against selectionists. By contrast, the selectionist explanation invokes a scientific theory, and thus it (...)
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  • The Contextual Theory of Explanation and Inference to the Best Explanation.Seungbae Park - 2022 - Axiomathes 32 (2):311-326.
    Van Fraassen explains rejections and asymmetries in science in terms of his contextual theory of explanation in the same way that scientists explain observable phenomena in the world in terms of scientific theories. I object that van Fraassen’s skeptical view regarding inference to the best explanation together with the English view of rationality jointly imply that the contextual theory is not rationally compelling, so van Fraassen and his epistemic colleagues can rationally disbelieve it. Prasetya replies that the truth of the (...)
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  • How to Formulate Scientific Realism and Antirealism.Seungbae Park - 2019 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 50 (4):477–488.
    The wider the gap between rivaling positions, the more there can be debates between rivaling interlocutors. The gap between the respective formulations of scientific realism and antirealism that invoke the Prussian conception of rationality is wider than the gap between the respective formulations of scientific realism and antirealism that invoke the English conception of rationality. Therefore, scientific realists and antirealists should choose the former over the latter as the framework of their debate.
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  • Formulational vs. Epistemological Debates Concerning Scientific Realism.Seungbae Park - 2020 - Dialogue 59 (3):479-496.
    A formulational debate is a debate over whether certain definitions of scientific realism and antirealism are useful or useless. By contrast, an epistemological debate is a debate over whether we have sufficient evidence for scientific realism and antirealism defined in a certain manner. I argue that Hilary Putnam’s definitions of scientific realism and antirealism are more useful than Bas van Fraassen’s definitions of scientific realism and constructive empiricism because Putnam’s definitions can generate both formulational and epistemological debates, whereas van Fraassen’s (...)
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  • Critiques of Axiological Realism and Surrealism.Seungbae Park - 2019 - Acta Analytica 35 (1):61-74.
    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 (...)
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  • The Appearance and the Reality of a Scientific Theory.Seungbae Park - 2020 - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 9 (11):59-69.
    Scientific realists claim that the best of successful rival theories is (approximately) true. Relative realists object that we cannot make the absolute judgment that a theory is successful, and that we can only make the relative judgment that it is more successful than its competitor. I argue that this objection is undermined by the cases in which empirical equivalents are successful. Relative realists invoke the argument from a bad lot to undermine scientific realism and to support relative realism. In response, (...)
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