This paper aims to defend scientific realism against two versions of agnostic empiricism: a naive agnostic position, which suggests that the only rational option is to remain agnostic as to the truth of theoretical assertions, and van Fraassen's more sophisticated agnostic empiricism - which may be called "Hypercritical Empiricism". It first argues that given semantic realism, naive agnostic empiricism cannot be maintained: there is no relevant epistemic difference between theoretical assertions and observational ones. It then focuses on van Fraassen's more (...) sophisticated alternative to scientific realism and suggests that an attitude towards science which involves less than aiming at theoretical truth and believing in theories would be, in some concrete respect that empiricists should recognize, worse off than the recommended realist attitude. To this end, the paper develops the so-called conjunction argument into a diachronic argument for scientific realism. (shrink)

There is an interesting problem concerning component causes posed by Cartwright (1983) in her book How the Laws of Physics Lie, which is easily explained in terms of a simple example. Consider a cup sitting on the table. Why doesn’t it move? The explanation given by Newtonian mechanics is that the cup is experiencing two forces-the downward force of gravity and the upward ‘elastic’ force of the table-and these two forces exactly cancel to produce a zero resultant force. This zero (...) resultant force then produces a zero acceleration, which ‘explains’ why the cup doesn’t move. This rather simple, yet typical, example of theoretical explanation raises a surprisingly deep puzzle: What justification is there for believing in the existence of the component forces if they are redundant to the explanation? For it does not really matter what size the component forces are so long as their resultant is zero. (shrink)

Section 2 will begin by formulating Reichenbach’s principle of common cause in a more general way than is usual but in a way that makes the idea behind it a lot clearer. The way that Salmon has pushed the principle into the services of scientific realism will be explained in terms of an example, van Fraassen objects, Salmon modifies his stand and van Fraassen rejoins - all in section 2. (See van Fraassen 1980, chapter 2).In this episode I think van (...) Fraassen right in claiming - against Salmon that there is no categorical imperative for common cause explanation, and I add my own examples in section 3. The first example ‘is the explanation of the correlation between the equilibrium positions of two objects on a balance in terms of their property of “mass” and the law of moments. (shrink)

The theory-theory of human uniqueness posits that the capacity to theorize, in a way strongly analogous to theorizing in scientific practice, was a key innovation in the hominid lineage and was responsible for many of our unique cognitive traits. One of the central arguments that its proponents have used to support the claim that animals are not theorists, the logical problem, bears strong similarities to Hempel's theoretician's dilemma, which purports to show that theories are unnecessary. This similarity threatens to undermine (...) both the claim that theorizing serves a unique, adaptive role in human cognition and our ability to test for the presence of theories. I examine two historical responses to the theoretician's dilemma and argue that they open up strategies for experimentally testing for theoretical ability in other animals. (shrink)