The intuition of the naı¨ve realist, miracle arguments notwithstanding, is countered forcefully by a host of considerations, including the possibility of underdetermination, and criticisms of abductive inferences to explanatory hypotheses. Some have suggested that an induction may be performed, from the perspective of present theories, on their predecessors. Past theories are thought to be false, strictly speaking; it is thus likely that present-day theories are also false, and will be taken as such at an appropriate future time.

The no-miracles argument for realism and the pessimistic meta-induction for anti-realism pull in opposite directions. Structural Realism---the position that the mathematical structure of mature science reflects reality---relieves this tension.

This essay contains a partial exploration of some key concepts associated with the epistemology of realist philosophies of science. It shows that neither reference nor approximate truth will do the explanatory jobs that realists expect of them. Equally, several widely-held realist theses about the nature of inter-theoretic relations and scientific progress are scrutinized and found wanting. Finally, it is argued that the history of science, far from confirming scientific realism, decisively confutes several extant versions of avowedly 'naturalistic' forms of scientific (...) realism. (shrink)

Preanalytically, we are all scientific realists. But both philosophers and scientists become uncomfortable when forced into analysis. In the case of scientists, this discomfort often arises from practical difficulties in setting out a carefully described set of objects which adequately account for the phenomena with which they are concerned. This paper offers a set of representative examples of these difficulties for contemporary physicists. These examples challenge the traditional realist vision of mature scientific activity as struggling toward an ontologically well-defined world (...) picture. They challenge antirealist alternatives as well. (shrink)

The Analysis of Matter is perhaps best known for marking Russell's rejection of phenomenalism and his development of a variety of Lockean representationalism–-Russell's causal theory of perception. This occupies Part 2 of the work. Part 1, which is certainly less well known, contains many observations on twentieth-century physics. Unfortunately, Russell's discussion of relativity and the foundations of physical geometry is carried out in apparent ignorance of Reichenbach's and Carnap's investigations in the same period. The issue of conventionalism in its then (...) contemporary form is simply not discussed. The only writers of the period who appear to have had any influence on Russell's conception of the philosophical issues raised by relativity were Whitehead and Eddington. Even the work of A. A. Robb fails to receive any extended discussion;1 although Robb's causal theory is certainly relevant to many of Russell's concerns, especially those voiced in Part 3, regarding the construction of points and the topology of space-time. In the case of quantum mechanics, the idiosyncrasy of Russell's selection of topics is more understandable, since the Heisenberg and Schrödinger theories were only just discovered. Nevertheless, it seems bizarre to a contemporary reader that Russell should have given such emphasis2 to G. N. Lewis's suggestion that an atom emits light only when there is another atom to receive it–-a suggestion reminiscent of Leibniz, and one to which Russell frequently returns. In short, the philosophical problems of modern physics with which Russell deals seem remote from the perspective of post-positivist philosophy of physics. (shrink)

The book is drawn from the Tarner lectures, delivered in Cambridge in 1993. It is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality, and how this is revealed by modern physical theories such as relativity and quantum theory. The objectivity and rationality of science are defended against the views of relativists and social constructionists. It is claimed that modern physics gives us a tentative and fallible, but nevertheless rational, approach to the nature of physical reality. The role of subjectivity in science (...) is examined in the fields of relativity theory, statistical mechanics and quantum theory, and recent claims of an essential role for human consciousness in physics are rejected. Prospects for a 'Theory of Everything' are considered, and the related question of how to assess scientific progress is carefully examined. (shrink)

This work is the long awaited sequel to the author’s classic Frege: Philosophy of Language. But it is not exactly what the author originally planned. He tells us that when he resumed work on the book in the summer of 1989, after a long interruption, he decided to start afresh. The resulting work followed a different plan from the original drafts. The reader does not know what was lost by their abandonment, but clearly much was gained: The present work may (...) be the most compactly organized of Dummett’s philosophical books, and its value as commentary on Frege is enhanced by its being organized as a study of Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik and selected parts of Grundgesetze. Moreover, since Dummett has been thinking and writing about Frege for forty years, we have a single, mature chronological stage of his thought. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, John Worrall has defended and elaborated a philosophical position – traced back to Poincaré– which he calls structural realism. This view stands in between scientific realism and agnostic instrumentalism and intends to accommodate both the intuitions that underwrite the ‘no miracles’ argument for scientific realism and the existence of scientific revolutions which lead to radical theoretical changes. Structural realism presents itself as the best of both worlds. In this paper I critically examine the epistemic (...) status of structural realism, and argue that it is not the best of both worlds. Yet, I stress that it reveals an insight which, properly understood, can cast new light on the debates over scientific realism. (shrink)

M. H. A. Newman (1928) criticized Russell's structuralist philosophy of science. Demopoulos and Friedman have discussed Newman's critique, showing its relevance to the structuralist positions held by Schlick and Carnap, and to Putnam's argument against "metaphysical realism". I discuss Richard Braithwaite's (1940) appeal to Newman in a critique of Arthur Eddington. Braithwaite believed Newman had shown that "structure depends upon content". Eddington, in his reply, misunderstood the generality of Newman's argument.