In the final chapter of his recent book How to Be a Pyrrhonist: The Practice and Significance of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, Richard Bett discusses the possibility of living as a Pyrrhonian skeptic today. Chief among his concerns is the scope of the skeptic’s suspension of judgment and whether or not the skeptic could maintain suspension of judgment in light of the results of modern science. For example, how might the skeptic sustain suspension of judgment in light of overwhelming evidence for climate (...) change? Or even atomic theory? Ultimately, Bett concludes that such claims within the natural sciences preclude us from living as Pyrrhonists today. In the following paper I argue, how it is possible for the Pyrrhonian skeptic to suspend judgment on certain well-confirmed scientific theories, how the skeptic does so in accord with rational norms, and in turn, that Pyrrhonian skepticism is possible as a way of life today. (shrink)

I examine the epistemological debate on scientific realism in the context of quantum physics, focusing on the empirical underdetermin- ation of different formulations and interpretations of QM. I will argue that much of the interpretational, metaphysical work on QM tran- scends the kinds of realist commitments that are well-motivated in the light of the history of science. I sketch a way of demarcating empirically well-confirmed aspects of QM from speculative quantum metaphysics in a way that coheres with anti-realist evidence from (...) the history of science. The minimal realist attitude sketched withholds realist com- mitment to what quantum state |Ψ⟩ represents. I argue that such commitment is not required for fulfilling the ultimate realist motiva- tion: accounting for the empirical success of quantum mechanics in a way that is in tune with a broader understanding of how theoretical science progresses and latches onto reality. (shrink)

A prominent type of scientific realism holds that some important parts of our best current scientific theories are at least approximately true. According to such realists, radically distinct alternatives to these theories or theory-parts are unlikely to be approximately true. Thus one might be tempted to argue, as the prominent anti-realist Kyle Stanford recently did, that realists of this kind have little or no reason to encourage scientists to attempt to identify and develop theoretical alternatives that are radically distinct from (...) currently accepted theories in the relevant respects. In other words, it may seem that realists should recommend that scientists be relatively conservative in their theoretical endeavors. This paper aims to show that this argument is mistaken. While realists should indeed be less optimistic of finding radically distinct alternatives to replace current theories, realists also have greater reasons to value the outcomes of such searches. Interestingly, this holds both for successful and failed attempts to identify and develop such alternatives. (shrink)