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  1. Structural Realism.James Ladyman - 2014 - In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab.
    Structural realism is considered by many realists and antirealists alike as the most defensible form of scientific realism. There are now many forms of structural realism and an extensive literature about them. There are interesting connections with debates in metaphysics, philosophy of physics and philosophy of mathematics. This entry is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the field.
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  • Reconsidering the miracle argument on the supposition of transient underdetermination.Paul Hoyningen-Huene - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):173 - 187.
    In this paper, I will show that the Miracle Argument is unsound if one assumes a certain form of transient underdetermination. For this aim, I will first discuss and formalize several variants of underdetermination, especially that of transient underdetermination, by means of measure theory. I will then formalize a popular and persuasive form of the Miracle Argument that is based on "use novelty". I will then proceed to the proof that the miracle argument is unsound by means of a mathematical (...)
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  • Structural realism versus standard scientific realism: the case of phlogiston and dephlogisticated air.James Ladyman - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):87 - 101.
    The aim of this paper is to revisit the phlogiston theory to see what can be learned from it about the relationship between scientific realism, approximate truth and successful reference. It is argued that phlogiston theory did to some extent correctly describe the causal or nomological structure of the world, and that some of its central terms can be regarded as referring. However, it is concluded that the issue of whether or not theoretical terms successfully refer is not the key (...)
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  • Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science.Howard Sankey - 2008 - Ashgate.
    Scientific realism is the position that the aim of science is to advance on truth and increase knowledge about observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent world which we inhabit. This book articulates and defends that position. In presenting a clear formulation and addressing the major arguments for scientific realism Sankey appeals to philosophers beyond the community of, typically Anglo-American, analytic philosophers of science to appreciate and understand the doctrine. The book emphasizes the epistemological aspects of scientific realism and contains (...)
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  • Two arguments for scientific realism unified.Harker David - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (2):192-202.
    Inferences from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories remain central to the most influential arguments for scientific realism. Challenges to such inferences, however, based on radical discontinuities within the history of science, have motivated a distinctive style of revision to the original argument. Conceding the historical claim, selective realists argue that accompanying even the most revolutionary change is the retention of significant parts of replaced theories, and that a realist attitude towards the systematically retained constituents of our (...)
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  • Scientific Realism.Richard Boyd - 1984 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 21 (1&2):767-791.
    (i) Scientific realism is primarily a metaphysical doctrine about the existence and nature of the unobservables of science. (ii) There are good explanationist arguments for realism, most famously that from the success of science, provided abduction is allowed. Abduction seems to be on an equal footing, at least, with other ampliative methods of inference. (iii) We have no reason to believe a doctrine of empirical equivalence that would sustain the underdetermination argument against realism. (iv) The key to defending realism from (...)
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  • Akaike and the No Miracle Argument for Scientific Realism.Alireza Fatollahi - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (1):21-37.
    The “No Miracle Argument” for scientific realism contends that the only plausible explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories is their truthlikeness, but doesn’t specify what ‘truthlikeness’ means. I argue that if we understand ‘truthlikeness’ in terms of Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, the resulting realist thesis (RKL) is a plausible explanation for science’s success. Still, RKL probably falls short of the realist’s ideal. I argue, however, that the strongest version of realism that the argument can plausibly establish is RKL. The (...)
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  • Fishbones, Wheels, Eyes, and Butterflies: Heuristic Structural Reasoning in the Search for Solutions to the Navier-Stokes Equations.Lydia Patton - 2023 - In Lydia Patton & Erik Curiel (eds.), Working Toward Solutions in Fluid Dynamics and Astrophysics: What the Equations Don’t Say. Springer Verlag. pp. 57-78.
    Arguments for the effectiveness, and even the indispensability, of mathematics in scientific explanation rely on the claim that mathematics is an effective or even a necessary component in successful scientific predictions and explanations. Well-known accounts of successful mathematical explanation in physical science appeals to scientists’ ability to solve equations directly in key domains. But there are spectacular physical theories, including general relativity and fluid dynamics, in which the equations of the theory cannot be solved directly in target domains, and yet (...)
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  • Experimental criteria for accessing reality: Perrin’s experimental demonstration of atoms and molecules.Jonathon Hricko & Ruey-Lin Chen - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-25.
    This paper develops an approach to the scientific realism debate that has three main features. First, our approach admits multiple criteria of reality, i.e., criteria that, if satisfied, warrant belief in the reality of hypothetical entities. Second, our approach is experiment-based in the sense that it focuses on criteria that are satisfied by experiments as opposed to theories. Third, our approach is local in the sense that it focuses on the reality of particular kinds of entities. We apply this approach (...)
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  • The Poetics of Physics.Chris Jeynes, Michael C. Parker & Margaret Barker - 2023 - Philosophies 8 (1):3.
    Physics has been thought to truly represent reality since at least Galileo, and the foundations of physics are always established using philosophical ideas. In particular, the elegant naming of physical entities is usually very influential in the acceptance of physical theories. We here demonstrate (using current developments in thermodynamics as an example) that both the epistemology and the ontology of physics ultimately rest on poetic language. What we understand depends essentially on the language we use. We wish to establish our (...)
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  • From Unobservable to Observable: Scientific Realism and the Discovery of Radium.Simon Allzén - 2022 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 53 (4):307-321.
    I explore the process of changes in the observability of entities and objects in science and how such changes impact two key issues in the scientific realism debate: the claim that predictively successful elements of past science are retained in current scientific theories, and the inductive defense of a specific version of inference to the best explanation with respect to unobservables. I provide a case-study of the discovery of radium by Marie Curie in order to show that the observability of (...)
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  • Realizm strukturalny a problem reprezentacji w nauce w kontekście sporu o realizm naukowy.Janina Buczkowska - 2020 - Studia Philosophiae Christianae 56 (4):153-178.
    Przedmiotem artykułu jest ukazanie realizmu strukturalnego jako stanowiska realistycznego w dyskusji, prowadzonej wokół realizmu naukowego – jego wybranych zalet i słabości. Realizm strukturalny jest odpowiedzią na wyzwanie, jakie realizmowi naukowemu stawiają historyczne fakty zmiany teorii w nauce. Nawiązuje on do semantycznego ujęcia teorii naukowych i wypracowanego w tym podejściu aparatu pojęciowego. Zgodnie z realizmem strukturalnym to, co zostaje zachowane z dojrzałych teorii naukowych po zmianie teorii, to ich sformułowania matematyczne, będące abstrakcyjnymi modelami teorii. Są one aproksymacyjnie prawdziwe, gdyż reprezentują realne (...)
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  • Escaping the Fundamental Dichotomy of Scientific Realism.Shahin Kaveh - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (4):999-1025.
    The central motivation behind the scientific realism debate is explaining the impressive success of scientific theories. The debate has been dominated by two rival types of explanations: the first relies on some sort of static, referentially transparent relationship between the theory and the unobservable world, such as truthlikeness, representation, or structural similarity; the second relies on no robust relationship between the theory and unobservable reality at all, and instead draws on predictive similarity and the stringent methodology of science to explain (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Historical Challenge to Realism and Essential Deployment.Mario Alai - 2021 - In Timothy D. Lyons & Peter Vickers (eds.), Contemporary Scientific Realism: The Challenge From the History of Science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    Deployment Realism resists Laudan’s and Lyons’ objections to the “No Miracle Argument” by arguing that a hypothesis is most probably true when it is deployed essentially in a novel prediction. However, Lyons criticized Psillos’ criterion of essentiality, maintaining that Deployment Realism should be committed to all the actually deployed assumptions. But since many actually deployed assumptions proved false, he concludes that the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism fail. I reply that the essentiality condition is required by Occam’s razor. In (...)
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  • What Science Fiction Can Demonstrate About Novelty in the Context of Discovery and Scientific Creativity.Clarissa Ai Ling Lee - 2019 - Foundations of Science 24 (4):705-725.
    Four instances of how science fiction contributes to the elucidation of novelty in the context of discovery are considered by extending existing discussions on temporal and use-novelty. In the first instance, science fiction takes an already well-known theory and produces its own re-interpretation; in the second instance, the scientific account is usually straightforward and whatever novelty that may occur would be more along the lines of how the science is deployed to extra-scientific matters; in the third instance, science fiction takes (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Scientific Realism.Anjan Chakravartty - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Debates about scientific realism are closely connected to almost everything else in the philosophy of science, for they concern the very nature of scientific knowledge. Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, known collectively (...)
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  • Truth-Seeking by Abduction.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2018 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
    This book examines the philosophical conception of abductive reasoning as developed by Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. It explores the historical and systematic connections of Peirce's original ideas and debates about their interpretations. Abduction is understood in a broad sense which covers the discovery and pursuit of hypotheses and inference to the best explanation. The analysis presents fresh insights into this notion of reasoning, which derives from effects to causes or from surprising observations to explanatory theories. The (...)
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  • Kuhn, Relativism and Realism.Howard Sankey - 2017 - In Juha Saatsi (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism. New York: Routledge. pp. 72-83.
    The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between Kuhn’s views about science and scientific realism. I present an overview of key features of Kuhn’s model of scientific change. The model suggests a relativistic approach to the methods of science. I bring out a conflict between this relativistic approach and a realist approach to the norms of method. I next consider the question of progress and truth. Kuhn’s model is a problem-solving model that proceeds by way of puzzles (...)
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  • Systematicity theory meets Socratic scientific realism: the systematic quest for truth.Timothy D. Lyons - 2019 - Synthese 196 (3):833-861.
    Systematicity theory—developed and articulated by Paul Hoyningen-Huene—and scientific realism constitute separate encompassing and empirical accounts of the nature of science. Standard scientific realism asserts the axiological thesis that science seeks truth and the epistemological thesis that we can justifiably believe our successful theories at least approximate that aim. By contrast, questions pertaining to truth are left “outside” systematicity theory’s “intended scope” ; the scientific realism debate is “simply not” its “focus”. However, given the continued centrality of that debate in the (...)
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  • Scientific Realism.Timothy D. Lyons - 2014 - In Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 564-584.
    This article endeavors to identify the strongest versions of the two primary arguments against epistemic scientific realism: the historical argument—generally dubbed “the pessimistic meta-induction”—and the argument from underdetermination. It is shown that, contrary to the literature, both can be understood as historically informed but logically validmodus tollensarguments. After specifying the question relevant to underdetermination and showing why empirical equivalence is unnecessary, two types of competitors to contemporary scientific theories are identified, both of which are informed by science itself. With the (...)
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  • Introduction: Scientific Explanation Beyond Causation.Alexander Reutlinger & Juha Saatsi - 2018 - In Alexander Reutlinger & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    This is an introduction to the volume "Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations", edited by A. Reutlinger and J. Saatsi (OUP, forthcoming in 2017). -/- Explanations are very important to us in many contexts: in science, mathematics, philosophy, and also in everyday and juridical contexts. But what is an explanation? In the philosophical study of explanation, there is long-standing, influential tradition that links explanation intimately to causation: we often explain by providing accurate information about the causes of the (...)
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  • Epistemic selectivity, historical threats, and the non-epistemic tenets of scientific realism.Timothy D. Lyons - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3203-3219.
    The scientific realism debate has now reached an entirely new level of sophistication. Faced with increasingly focused challenges, epistemic scientific realists have appropriately revised their basic meta-hypothesis that successful scientific theories are approximately true: they have emphasized criteria that render realism far more selective and, so, plausible. As a framework for discussion, I use what I take to be the most influential current variant of selective epistemic realism, deployment realism. Toward the identification of new case studies that challenge this form (...)
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  • Optimistic realism about scientific progress.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3291-3309.
    Scientific realists use the “no miracle argument” to show that the empirical and pragmatic success of science is an indicator of the ability of scientific theories to give true or truthlike representations of unobservable reality. While antirealists define scientific progress in terms of empirical success or practical problem-solving, realists characterize progress by using some truth-related criteria. This paper defends the definition of scientific progress as increasing truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Antirealists have tried to rebut realism with the “pessimistic metainduction”, but critical (...)
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  • Explanation and explanationism in science and metaphysics.Juha Saatsi - 2017 - In Matthew H. Slater & Zanja Yudell (eds.), Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: New Essays. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter examines the status of inference to the best explanation in naturalistic metaphysics. The methodology of inference to the best explanation in metaphysics is studied from the perspective of contemporary views on scientific explanation and explanatory inferences in the history and philosophy of science. This reveals serious shortcomings in prevalent attempts to vindicate metaphysical "explanationism" by reference to similarities between science and naturalistic metaphysics. This critique is brought out by considering a common gambit of methodological unity: (1) Both metaphysics (...)
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  • Methodological realism and modal resourcefulness: out of the web and into the mine.Lydia Patton - 2015 - Synthese 192 (11):3443-3462.
    Psillos, Kitcher, and Leplin have defended convergent scientific realism against the pessimistic meta-induction by arguing for the divide et impera strategy. I argue that DEI faces a problem more serious than the pessimistic meta-induction: the problem of accretion. When empirically successful theories and principles are combined, they may no longer make successful predictions or allow for accurate calculations, or the combination otherwise may be an empirical failure. The shift from classical mechanics to the new quantum theory does not reflect the (...)
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  • What Elements of Successful Scientific Theories Are the Correct Targets for “Selective” Scientific Realism?Dean Peters - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (3):377-397.
    Selective scientific realists disagree on which theoretical posits should be regarded as essential to the empirical success of a scientific theory. A satisfactory account of essentialness will show that the (approximate) truth of the selected posits adequately explains the success of the theory. Therefore, (a) the essential elements must be discernible prospectively; (b) there cannot be a priori criteria regarding which type of posit is essential; and (c) the overall success of a theory, or ‘cluster’ of propositions, not only individual (...)
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  • A Historically Informed Modus Ponens Against Scientific Realism: Articulation, Critique, and Restoration.Timothy D. Lyons - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (4):369-392.
    There are two primary arguments against scientific realism, one pertaining to underdetermination, the other to the history of science. While these arguments are usually treated as altogether distinct, P. Kyle Stanford's ‘problem of unconceived alternatives’ constitutes one kind of synthesis: I propose that Stanford's argument is best understood as a broad modus ponens underdetermination argument, into which he has inserted a unique variant of the historical pessimistic induction. After articulating three criticisms against Stanford's argument and the evidence that he offers, (...)
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  • The Fertility of Theories.Robert Segall - unknown
    In addition to empirical adequacy and compatibility with other current theories, scientific theories are commonly judged on three criteria â simplicity, elegance, and fertility. Fertility has received comparatively little attention in the philosophical literature. A definition of a certain sort of fertility, called P-fertility, proposed by Ernan McMullin, is that it consists in the capacity of a theory to be successfully modified over time to explain new experimental data or theoretical insights. McMullin made the major claim that he has a (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Scientific Realism.Anjann D. Chakravartty - 2013 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Debates about scientific realism are closely connected to almost everything else in the philosophy of science, for they concern the very nature of scientific knowledge. Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, known collectively (...)
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  • Criteria for Attributing Predictive Responsibility in the Scientific Realism Debate: Deployment, Essentiality, Belief, Retention ….Timothy Lyons - 2009 - Human Affairs 19 (2):138-152.
    The most promising contemporary form of epistemic scientific realism is based on the following intuition: Belief should be directed, not toward theories as wholes, but toward particular theoretical constituents that are responsible for, or deployed in, key successes. While the debate on deployment realism is quite fresh, a significant degree of confusion has already entered into it. Here I identify five criteria that have sidetracked that debate. Setting these distractions aside, I endeavor to redirect the attention of both realists and (...)
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  • (1 other version)Interactive Realism.Emma Ruttkamp - 2011 - South African Journal of Philosophy 30 (1):41-52.
    I investigate a new understanding of realism in science, referred to as ‘interactive realism’, and I suggest the ‘evolutionary progressiveness’ of a theory as novel criterion for this kind of realism. My basic claim is that we cannot be realists about anything except the progress affected by myriad science-reality interactions that are constantly moving on a continuum of increased ‘fitness’ determined according to empirical constraints. Moreover to reflect this movement accurately, there is a corresponding continuum of verdicts about the status (...)
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  • Restoring Continuity in Theory Change: The Kepler-to-Newton Case. [REVIEW]Vassilis Sakellariou - 2011 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 42 (1):109 - 127.
    In the on-going debate between scientific realism and its various opponents, a crucial role in challenging the realist claim that success of scientific theories must be attributed to their approximate truth is played by the so-called pessimistic meta-induction: Arguing that the history of science boils down to a succession of theories which, though successful at a time, were eventually discarded only to be replaced by alternative theories which in turn met with the same fate, it purports to show that the (...)
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  • The Argument from Underconsideration and Relative Realism.Moti Mizrahi - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (4):393-407.
    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 (...)
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  • How to Split a Theory: Defending Selective Realism and Convergence without Proximity.David Harker - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1):79-106.
    The most influential arguments for scientific realism remain centrally concerned with an inference from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories. Recently, however, and in response to antirealists' objections from radical discontinuity within the history of science, the arguments have been refined. Rather than target entire theories, realists narrow their commitments to only certain parts of theories. Despite an initial plausibility, the selective realist strategy faces significant challenges. In this article, I outline four prerequisites for a successful selective (...)
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  • The Problem of Deep Competitors and the Pursuit of Epistemically Utopian Truths.Timothy D. Lyons - 2011 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 42 (2):317-338.
    According to standard scientific realism, science seeks truth and we can justifiably believe that our successful theories achieve, or at least approximate, that goal. In this paper, I discuss the implications of the following competitor thesis: Any theory we may favor has competitors such that we cannot justifiably deny that they are approximately true. After defending that thesis, I articulate three specific threats it poses for standard scientific realism; one is epistemic, the other two are axiological (that is, pertaining to (...)
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  • Non‐competitor Conditions in the Scientific Realism Debate.Timothy D. Lyons - 2009 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (1):65-84.
    A general insight of 20th-century philosophy of science is that the acceptance of a scientific theory is grounded, not merely on a theory's relation to data, but on its status as having no, or being superior to its, competitors. I explore the ways in which scientific realists might be thought to utilise this insight, have in fact utilised it, and can legitimately utilise it. In more detail, I point out that, barring a natural but mistaken characterisation of scientific realism, traditional (...)
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  • Axiological Scientific Realism and Methodological Prescription.Timothy D. Lyons - 2011 - In Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009. Springer. pp. 187--197.
    In this paper I distinguish between two kinds of meta-hypotheses, or hypotheses about science, at issue in the scientific realism debate. The first are descriptive empirical hypotheses regarding the nature of scientific inquiry. The second are epistemological theories about what individuals should / can justifiably believe about scientific theories. Favoring the realist Type-D meta-hypotheses, I argue that a particular set of realist and non-realist efforts in the debate over Type-E’s have been valuable in the quest to describe and understand the (...)
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  • Three conceptions of explaining how possibly—and one reductive account.Johannes Persson - 2011 - In Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009. Springer. pp. 275--286.
    Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this belief system so that acceptance of X does not result in contradiction. The second variety offers (...)
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  • (1 other version)When empirical success implies theoretical reference: A structural correspondence theorem.Gerhard Schurz - 2009 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (1):101-133.
    Starting from a brief recapitulation of the contemporary debate on scientific realism, this paper argues for the following thesis : Assume a theory T has been empirically successful in a domain of application A, but was superseded later on by a superior theory T * , which was likewise successful in A but has an arbitrarily different theoretical superstructure. Then under natural conditions T contains certain theoretical expressions, which yielded T's empirical success, such that these T-expressions correspond (in A) to (...)
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  • Conclusion : philosophy enough.Don Ross & James Ladyman - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross (eds.), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • (1 other version)P. Kyle Stanford exceeding our grasp: Science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives.Patrick Enfield - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (4):881-895.
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  • Scientific Realism and Empirical Confirmation: a Puzzle.Simon Allzén - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90:153-159.
    Scientific realism driven by inference to the best explanation (IBE) takes empirically confirmed objects to exist, independent, pace empiricism, of whether those objects are observable or not. This kind of realism, it has been claimed, does not need probabilistic reasoning to justify the claim that these objects exist. But I show that there are scientific contexts in which a non-probabilistic IBE-driven realism leads to a puzzle. Since IBE can be applied in scientific contexts in which empirical confirmation has not yet (...)
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  • Four Challenges to Epistemic Scientific Realism—and the Socratic Alternative.Timothy D. Lyons - 2018 - Spontaneous Generations 9 (1):146-150.
    Four Challenges to Epistemic Scientific Realism—and the Socratic Alternative.
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  • Structural realism versus deployment realism: A comparative evaluation.Timothy D. Lyons - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 59:95-105.
    In this paper I challenge and adjudicate between the two positions that have come to prominence in the scientific realism debate: deployment realism and structural realism. I discuss a set of cases from the history of celestial mechanics, including some of the most important successes in the history of science. To the surprise of the deployment realist, these are novel predictive successes toward which theoretical constituents that are now seen to be patently false were genuinely deployed. Exploring the implications for (...)
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  • A Confrontation of Convergent Realism.Peter Vickers - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (2):189-211.
    For many years—and with some energy since Laudan’s “Confutation of Convergent Realism” —the scientific realist has sought to accommodate examples of false-yet-successful theories in the history of science. One of the most prominent strategies is to identify ‘success fueling’ components of false theories that themselves are at least approximately true. In this article I develop both sides of the debate, introducing new challenges from the history of science as well as suggesting adjustments to the divide et impera realist strategy. A (...)
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  • Re-enchanting Realism in Debate with Kyle Stanford.Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem - 2013 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (1):201-224.
    In this article, against the background of a notion of ‘assembled’ truth, the evolutionary progressiveness of a theory is suggested as novel and promising explanation for the success of science. A new version of realism in science, referred to as ‘naturalised realism’ is outlined. Naturalised realism is ‘fallibilist’ in the unique sense that it captures and mimics the self-corrective core of scientific knowledge and its progress. It is argued that naturalised realism disarms Kyle Stanford’s anti-realist ‘new induction’ threats by showing (...)
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  • How the growth of science ends theory change.Ludwig Fahrbach - 2011 - Synthese 180 (2):139-155.
    This paper outlines a defense of scientific realism against the pessimistic meta- induction which appeals to the phenomenon of the exponential growth of science. Here, scientific realism is defined as the view that our current successful scientific theories are mostly approximately true, and pessimistic meta- induction is the argument that projects the occurrence of past refutations of successful theories to the present concluding that many or most current successful scientific theories are false. The defense starts with the observation that at (...)
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  • An A Priori Refutation of the Classical Pessimistic Induction.Patrick Cronin - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.
    According to the Classical Pessimistic Induction (CPI), otherwise positive features like predictive and explanatory success actually cast doubt on theories that display them. After all, they negatively correlate with truth. From this historical track record, it is inferred that current best theories are probably not (even approximately) true. The CPI is often wielded against realists about science, but others like Hume (1757), Pareto (1935), and Hájek (2007) extend it to philosophical theories more generally. In this paper, I unveil a priori (...)
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  • Empirical tests of scientific realism: A quantitative framework.James W. McAllister - 2023 - Metaphilosophy 54 (4):507-522.
    The scientific realism debate in philosophy of science raises some intriguing methodological issues. Scientific realism posits a link between a scientific theory's observational and referential success. This opens the possibility of testing the thesis empirically, by searching for evidence of such a link in the record of theories put forward in the history of science. Many realist philosophers working today propose case study methodology as a way of carrying out such a test. This article argues that a qualitative method such (...)
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  • Comparative success and empirical progress without approximate truth.Jonathon Hricko - 2023 - Synthese 201 (6):1-22.
    This paper argues against a particular version of the inference from the success of a scientific theory to the claim that the theory must be approximately true to some extent. The kind of success at issue is comparative, where one theory is more empirically successful than its rival if that theory predicts phenomena that are inexplicable or anomalous according to its rival. A theory that exhibits this kind of comparative success can be seen as thereby achieving empirical progress over its (...)
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