Results for 'Metanormative realism'

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  1. Ontological-Transcendental Defence of Metanormative Realism.Michael Kowalik - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (2):573-586.
    If there is something (P) that every possible agent is committed to value, and certain actions or attitudes either enhance or diminish P, then normative claims about a range of intentional actions can be objectively and non-trivially evaluated. I argue that the degree of existence as an agent depends on the consistency of reflexive-relating with other individuals of the agent-kind: the ontological thesis. I then show that in intending to act on a reason, every agent is rationally committed to value (...)
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  2. Realism and Metanormativity.Adrian Kreutz - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 1 (1):1–29..
    Political realists have argued that ‘the political’ is an autonomous domain with its own distinctive concepts, distinctive methodology, and distinctive ‘source of normativity’. I here explore the metanormative commitments of realism (of the radical realist branch, in particular) and question the viability of exploring the ontology of the normative altogether. I argue that the escape into the metanormative realm was something of a wrong turn within the realism debates – an intellectual error. My central argument, building (...)
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  3. Metanormative Theory and the Meaning of Deontic Modals.Matthew Chrisman - 2016 - In Nate Charlow & Matthew Chrisman (eds.), Deontic Modality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 395-424.
    Philosophical debate about the meaning of normative terms has long been pulled in two directions by the apparently competing ideas: (i) ‘ought’s do not describe what is actually the case but rather prescribe possible action, thought, or feeling, (ii) all declarative sentences deserve the same general semantic treatment, e.g. in terms of compositionally specified truth conditions. In this paper, I pursue resolution of this tension by rehearsing the case for a relatively standard truth-conditionalist semantics for ‘ought’ conceived as a necessity (...)
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  4. Against quietist normative realism.Tristram McPherson - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 154 (2):223-240.
    Recently, some philosophers have suggested that a form of robust realism about ethics, or normativity more generally, does not face a significant explanatory burden in metaphysics. I call this view metaphysically quietist normative realism . This paper argues that while this view can appear to constitute an attractive alternative to more traditional forms of normative realism, it cannot deliver on this promise. I examine Scanlon’s attempt to defend such a quietist realism, and argue that rather than (...)
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  5. Explanatory Indispensability and Deliberative Indispensability: Against Enoch's Analogy.Alex Worsnip - 2016 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (4):226-235.
    In this note, I discuss David Enoch's influential deliberative indispensability argument for metanormative realism, and contend that the argument fails. In doing so, I uncover an important disanalogy between explanatory indispensability arguments and deliberative indispensability arguments, one that explains how we could accept the former without accepting the latter.
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  6. Zetetic indispensability and epistemic justification.Mikayla Kelley - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (4):671-688.
    Robust metanormative realists think that there are irreducibly normative, metaphysically heavy normative facts. One might wonder how we could be epistemically justified in believing that such facts exist. In this paper, I offer an answer to this question: one’s belief in the existence of robustly real normative facts is epistemically justified because so believing is indispensable to being a successful inquirer for creatures like us. The argument builds on Enoch's (2007, 2011) deliberative indispensability argument for Robust Realism but (...)
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  7. Quasi-Dependence.Selim Berker - 2020 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 15:195-218.
    Quasi-realists aim to account for many of the trappings of metanormative realism within an expressivist framework. Chief among these is the realist way of responding to the Euthyphro dilemma: quasi-realists want to join realists in being able to say, "It’s not the case that kicking dogs is wrong because we disapprove of it. Rather, we disapprove of kicking dogs because it’s wrong." However, the standard quasi-realist way of explaining what we are up to when we assert the first (...)
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  8. Three Rival Versions of Kantian Constructivism.Garcia Ernesto V. - 2022 - Kant Yearbook 14 (1):23-43.
    In order to make some headway on the debate about whether Kant was a constructivist, nonconstructivist, or instead defends a hybrid view that somehow entirely sidesteps these categories, I attempt to clarify the terms of the debate more carefully than is usually done. First, I discuss the overall relationship between realism and constructivism. Second, I identify four main features of Kantian constructivism in general. Third, I examine three rival versions of metanormative Kantian constructivism, what I’ll call axiological, constitutivist, (...)
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  9. What is (In)coherence?Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 13:184-206.
    Recent work on rationality has been increasingly attentive to “coherence requirements”, with heated debates about both the content of such requirements and their normative status (e.g., whether there is necessarily reason to comply with them). Yet there is little to no work on the metanormative status of coherence requirements. Metaphysically: what is it for two or more mental states to be jointly incoherent, such that they are banned by a coherence requirement? In virtue of what are some putative requirements (...)
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  10. Ethics, Fitting Attitudes, and Practical Reason: A Theory of Normative Facts.Howard Nye - 2009 - Dissertation, University of Michigan
    I present and defend (1) an account of ethical judgments as judgments about our reasons to feel specific motivationally laden attitudes, (2) an account of what an agent should do in terms of what would achieve ends that she has reason to be motivated to pursue, and (3) an account of an agent’s reasons for motivation (and thus action) in terms of the prescriptions of the most fundamental principles that guide her deliberations. Using these accounts, I explain the connection between (...)
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  11. The Golden Rule as it Ought to Be.Michael Kowalik - manuscript
    The Golden Rule, most commonly expressed in the form "do to others what you would have them do to you", has attracted criticism for failing to provide practical guidance in case of moral disagreement and for being susceptible to irrational outcomes. I argue that the alleged limitations are not a defect but just what makes the Golden Rule an effective tool of socio-ontological transformation towards ideal agency.
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  12. Inescapability and Normativity.Matthew Silverstein - 2012 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (3):1-27.
    When we make ethical claims, we invoke a kind of objective authority. A familiar worry about our ethical practices is that this invocation of authority involves a mistake. This worry was perhaps best captured by John Mackie, who argued that the fabric of the world contains nothing so queer as objective authority and thus that all our ethical claims are false. Kantians such as Christine Korsgaard and David Velleman offer accounts of the objectivity of ethics that do without the controversial (...)
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  13. Metanormative Principles and Norm Governed Social Interaction.Berislav Žarnić & Gabriela Bašić - 2014 - Revus 22:105-120.
    Critical examination of Alchourrón and Bulygin’s set-theoretic definition of normative system shows that deductive closure is not an inevitable property. Following von Wright’s conjecture that axioms of standard deontic logic describe perfection-properties of a norm-set, a translation algorithm from the modal to the set-theoretic language is introduced. The translations reveal that the plausibility of metanormative principles rests on different grounds. Using a methodological approach that distinguishes the actor roles in a norm governed interaction, it has been shown that (...) principles are directed second-order obligations and, in particular, that the requirement related to deductive closure is directed to the norm-applier role rather than to the norm-giver role. The approach has been applied to the case of pure derogation yielding a new result, namely, that an independence property is a perfection-property of a norm-set in view of possible derogation. This paper in a polemical way touches upon several points raised by Kristan in his recent paper. (shrink)
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  14. A Problem for Ambitious Metanormative Constructivism.Nadeem J. Z. Hussain - 2012 - In James Lenman & Yonatan Shemmer (eds.), Constructivism in Practical Philosophy. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    We can distinguish between ambitious metanormative constructivism and a variety of other constructivist projects in ethics and metaethics. Ambitious metanormative constructivism is the project of either developing a type of new metanormative theory, worthy of the label “constructivism”, that is distinct from the existing types of metaethical, or metanormative, theories already on the table—various realisms, non-cognitivisms, error-theories and so on—or showing that the questions that lead to these existing types of theories are somehow fundamentally confused. Natural (...)
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  15. (1 other version)Metanormative regress: an escape plan.Christian Tarsney - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (5).
    How should you decide what to do when you’re uncertain about basic normative principles? A natural suggestion is to follow some "second-order:" norm: e.g., obey the most probable norm or maximize expected choiceworthiness. But what if you’re uncertain about second-order norms too—must you then invoke some third-order norm? If so, any norm-guided response to normative uncertainty appears doomed to a vicious regress. This paper aims to rescue second-order norms from the threat of regress. I first elaborate and defend the claim (...)
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  16. Normative Commitments in Metanormative Theory.Pekka Väyrynen - 2018 - In Jussi Suikkanen & Antti Kauppinen (eds.), Methodology and Moral Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 193-213.
    First-order normative theories concerning what’s right and wrong, good and bad, etc. and metanormative theories concerning the nature of first-order normative thought and talk are widely regarded as independent theoretical enterprises. This paper argues that several debates in metanormative theory involve views that have first-order normative implications, even as the implications in question may not be immediately recognizable as normative. I first make my claim more precise by outlining a general recipe for generating this result. I then apply (...)
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  17. Scientific Realism in the Wild: An Empirical Study of Seven Sciences and History and Philosophy of Science.James R. Beebe & Finnur Dellsén - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (2):336-364.
    We report the results of a study that investigated the views of researchers working in seven scientific disciplines and in history and philosophy of science in regard to four hypothesized dimensions of scientific realism. Among other things, we found that natural scientists tended to express more strongly realist views than social scientists, that history and philosophy of science scholars tended to express more antirealist views than natural scientists, that van Fraassen’s characterization of scientific realism failed to cluster with (...)
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  18. 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 (...) and contains an original solution to the problem of induction that rests on an appeal to the principle of uniformity of nature. (shrink)
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  19. Scientific Realism without the Wave-Function: An Example of Naturalized Quantum Metaphysics.Valia Allori - 2020 - In Juha Saatsi & Steven French (eds.), Scientific Realism and the Quantum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories can be regarded as (approximately) true. This is connected with the view that science, physics in particular, and metaphysics could (and should) inform one another: on the one hand, science tells us what the world is like, and on the other hand, metaphysical principles allow us to select between the various possible theories which are underdetermined by the data. Nonetheless, quantum mechanics has always been regarded as, at best, puzzling, (...)
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  20. Metanormativity: Solving questions about moral and empirical uncertainty.Nicholas Kluge Corrêa & Nythamar Fernandes de Oliveira - 2020 - Ethic@: An International Journal for Moral Philosophy 19 (3):790-810.
    How can someone reconcile the desire to eat meat, and a tendency toward vegetarian ideals? How should we reconcile contradictory moral values? How can we aggregate different moral theories? How individual preferences can be fairly aggregated to represent a will, norm, or social decision? Conflict resolution and preference aggregation are tasks that intrigue philosophers, economists, sociologists, decision theorists, and many other scholars, being a rich interdisciplinary area for research. When trying to solve questions about moral uncertainty a meta understanding of (...)
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  21. Radical Realism and the Motivated Reasoning Connection.Adrian Kreutz - forthcoming - Political Studies Review.
    Advocates of radical realist theories of legitimacy propose that political legitimation narratives are often void where they show signs of motivated reasoning. In a recent critique of the method, example cases have been put forward in which an analysis and critique of flawed justification narratives seems urgently called for, and yet motivated reasoning is absent. This, critics suggest, should deflate the prominence of motivated reasoning within the radical realism. I argue here that those cases are misconstrued. Motivated reasoning can (...)
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  22. Realism in Normative Political Theory.Enzo Rossi & Matt Sleat - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (10):689-701.
    This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the (...)
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  23. Realism and the Value of Explanation.Samuel John Andrews - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4):1305–1314.
    Dasgupta poses a serious challenge to realism about natural properties. He argues that there is no acceptable explanation of why natural properties deserve the value realists assign to them and are consequently absent of value. In response, this paper defines and defends an alternative non-explanatory account of normativity compatible with realism. Unlike Lewis and Sider, who believe it is sufficient to defend realism solely on realist terms, I engage with the challenge on unfriendly grounds by revealing a (...)
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  24. 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 (...)
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  25. Selective Realism vs. Individual Realism for Scientific Creativity.Seungbae Park - 2017 - Creativity Studies 10 (1):97-107.
    Individual realism asserts that our best scientific theories are (approximately) true. In contrast, selective realism asserts that only the stable posits of our best scientific theories are true. Hence, individual realism recommends that we accept more of what our best scientific theories say about the world than selective realism does. The more scientists believe what their theories say about the world, the more they are motivated to exercise their imaginations and think up new theories and experiments. (...)
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  26. Immoral realism.Max Khan Hayward - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (4):897-914.
    Non-naturalist realists are committed to the belief, famously voiced by Parfit, that if there are no non-natural facts then nothing matters. But it is morally objectionable to conditionalise all our moral commitments on the question of whether there are non-natural facts. Non-natural facts are causally inefficacious, and so make no difference to the world of our experience. And to be a realist about such facts is to hold that they are mind-independent. It is compatible with our experiences that there are (...)
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  27. Legal Metanormativity: Lessons for and from Constitutivist Accounts in the Philosophy of Law.Kathryn Lindeman - 2019 - In Toh Kevin, Plunkett David & Shapiro Scott (eds.), Dimensions of Normativity: New Essays on Metaethics and Jurisprudence. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 87-104.
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  28. Scientific Realism, the Semantic View and Evolutionary Biology.Fabio Sterpetti - 1st ed. 2016 - In Emiliano Ippoliti, Fabio Sterpetti & Thomas Nickles (eds.), Models and Inferences in Science. Cham: Imprint: Springer. pp. 55-76.
    The semantic view of theories is normally considered to be an ac-count of theories congenial to Scientific Realism. Recently, it has been argued that Ontic Structural Realism could be fruitfully applied, in combination with the semantic view, to some of the philosophical issues peculiarly related to bi-ology. Given the central role that models have in the semantic view, and the relevance that mathematics has in the definition of the concept of model, the fo-cus will be on population genetics, (...)
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  29. Modal Realism and Anthropic Reasoning.Mario Gómez-Torrente - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (4):925-938.
    Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the description of Lewis’s metaphysical multiverse, where (...)
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  30. Realism and the absence of rivals.Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Synthese 194 (7):2427-2446.
    Among the most serious challenges to scientific realism are arguments for the underdetermination of theory by evidence. This paper defends a version of scientific realism against what is perhaps the most influential recent argument of this sort, viz. Kyle Stanford’s New Induction over the History of Science. An essential part of the defense consists in a probabilistic analysis of the slogan “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. On this basis it is argued that the likelihood of (...)
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  31. Realism about the wave function.Eddy Keming Chen - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (7):e12611.
    A century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the meaning of quantum mechanics still remains elusive. This is largely due to the puzzling nature of the wave function, the central object in quantum mechanics. If we are realists about quantum mechanics, how should we understand the wave function? What does it represent? What is its physical meaning? Answering these questions would improve our understanding of what it means to be a realist about quantum mechanics. In this survey article, I review (...)
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  32. Political Realism and Epistemic Constraints.Ugur Aytac - 2022 - Social Theory and Practice 48 (1):1-27.
    This article argues that Bernard Williams’ Critical Theory Principle (CTP) is in tension with his realist commitments, i.e., deriving political norms from practices that are inherent to political life. The Williamsian theory of legitimate state power is based on the central importance of the distinction between political rule and domination. Further, Williams supplements the normative force of his theory with the CTP, i.e., the principle that acceptance of a justification regarding power relations ought not to be created by the very (...)
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  33. Realism and the Epistemic Objectivity of Science.Howard Sankey - 2021 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 35 (1):5-20.
    The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the truth is presented. (...)
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  34. Non-Realist Cognitivism, Truthmaking, and Ontological Cheating.Farbod Akhlaghi - 2022 - Ethics 132 (2):291-321.
    Derek Parfit defended Non-Realist Cognitivism. It is an open secret that this metaethical theory is often thought at best puzzling and at worst objectionably unclear. Employing truthmaker theory, I provide an account of Non-Realist Cognitivism that dispels charges of objectionable unclarity, clarifies how to assess it, and explains why, if plausible, it would be an attractive theory. I develop concerns that the theory involves cheating into an objection that ultimately reveals Non-Realist Cognitivism faces a dilemma. Whether it can escape demands (...)
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  35. Realism against Legitimacy.Samuel Bagg - 2022 - Social Theory and Practice 48 (1):29-60.
    This article challenges the association between realist methodology and ideals of legitimacy. Many who seek a more “realistic” or “political” approach to political theory replace the familiar orientation towards a state of justice with a structurally similar orientation towards a state of legitimacy. As a result, they fail to provide more reliable practical guidance, and wrongly displace radical demands. Rather than orienting action towards any state of affairs, I suggest that a more practically useful approach to political theory would directly (...)
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  36. Must Realists Be Pessimists About Democracy? Responding to Epistemic and Oligarchic Challenges.Gordon Arlen & Enzo Rossi - 2021 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 8 (1):27-49.
    In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...)
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  37. Realism v Equilibrism about Philosophy.Daniel Stoljar - forthcoming - Syzetesis 1.
    Abstract: According to the realist about philosophy, the goal of philosophy is to come to know the truth about philosophical questions; according to what Helen Beebee calls equilibrism, by contrast, the goal is rather to place one’s commitments in a coherent system. In this paper, I present a critique of equilibrism in the form Beebee defends it, paying particular attention to her suggestion that various meta-philosophical remarks made by David Lewis may be recruited to defend equilibrism. At the end of (...)
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  38. Scientific Realism vs. Anti-Realism: Toward a Common Ground.Hanti Lin - manuscript
    The debate between scientific realism and anti-realism remains at a stalemate, making reconciliation seem hopeless. Yet, important work remains: exploring a common ground, even if only to uncover deeper points of disagreement and, ideally, to benefit both sides of the debate. I propose such a common ground. Specifically, many anti-realists, such as instrumentalists, have yet to seriously engage with Sober's call to justify their preferred version of Ockham's razor through a positive account. Meanwhile, realists face a similar challenge: (...)
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  39. Realism, reference & perspective.Carl Hoefer & Genoveva Martí - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-22.
    This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure (...)
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  40. (1 other version)Scientific Realism meets Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics.Juha Saatsi - 2017 - In Philosophers Think About Quantum Theory.
    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 (...)
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  41. Realism, Antirealism, and Conventionalism about Race.Jonathan Michael Kaplan & Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1039-1052.
    This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by (...)
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  42. Scientific realism with historical essences: the case of species.Marion Godman - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 12):3041-3057.
    Natural kinds, real kinds, or, following J.S Mill simply, Kinds, are thought to be an important asset for scientific realists in the non-fundamental (or “special”) sciences. Essential natures are less in vogue. I show that the realist would do well to couple her Kinds with essential natures in order to strengthen their epistemic and ontological credentials. I argue that these essential natures need not however be intrinsic to the Kind’s members; they may be historical. I concentrate on assessing the merits (...)
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  43. Realism Versus Surrealism.Seungbae Park - 2016 - Foundations of Science 21 (4):603-614.
    Realism and surrealism claim, respectively, that a scientific theory is successful because it is true, and because the world operates as if it is true. Lyons :891–901, 2003) criticizes realism and argues that surrealism is superior to realism. I reply that Lyons’s criticisms against realism fail. I also attempt to establish the following two claims: Realism and surrealism lead to a useful prescription and a useless prescription, respectively, on how to make an unsuccessful theory successful. (...)
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  44. Political realism as ideology critique.Janosch Prinz & Enzo Rossi - 2017 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 20 (3):334-348.
    This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem we combine insights from three distant corners of the philosophical landscape: theories of legitimacy by Bernard (...)
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  45. 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 (...)
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  46. (1 other version)Entity Realism About Mental Representations.Bence Nanay - 2019 - Erkenntnis 87 (1):75-91.
    The concept of mental representation has long been considered to be central concept of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But not everyone agrees. Neo-behaviorists aim to explain the mind without positing any representations. My aim here is not to assess the merits and demerits of neo-behaviorism, but to take their challenge seriously and ask the question: What justifies the attribution of representations to an agent? Both representationalists and neo-behaviorists tend to take it for granted that the real question about (...)
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  47. Scientific Realism and the Pessimistic Meta-Modus Tollens.Timothy D. Lyons - 2010 - In S. Clarke & T. D. Lyons (eds.), Recent Themes in the Philosophy of Science: Scientific Realism and Commonsense. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 63-90.
    Broadly speaking, the contemporary scientific realist is concerned to justify belief in what we might call theoretical truth, which includes truth based on ampliative inference and truth about unobservables. Many, if not most, contemporary realists say scientific realism should be treated as ‘an overarching scientific hypothesis’ (Putnam 1978, p. 18). In its most basic form, the realist hypothesis states that theories enjoying general predictive success are true. This hypothesis becomes a hypothesis to be tested. To justify our belief in (...)
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  48. Why Realists Need Tropes.Markku Keinänen, Jani Hakkarainen & Antti Keskinen - 2016 - Metaphysica 17 (1):69-85.
    We argue that if one wishes to be a realist, one should adopt a Neo-Aristotelian ontology involving tropes instead of a Russellian ontology of property universals and objects. Either Russellian realists should adopt the relata-specific relational tropes of instantiation instead of facts, or convert to Neo-Aristotelian realism with monadic tropes. Regarding Neo-Aristotelian realism, we have two novel points why it fares better than Russellian realism. Instantiation of property universals by tropes and characterization or inherence between tropes and (...)
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  49. Cosmological Realism.David Merritt - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C):193-208.
    I discuss the relevance of the current predicament in cosmology to the debate over scientific realism. I argue that the existence of two, empirically successful but ontologically inconsistent cosmological theories presents difficulties for the realist position.
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  50. (1 other version)Pragmatic Realism: Towards a Reconciliation of Enactivism and Realism.Catherine Legg & André Sant’Anna - 2025 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 24 (1).
    This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactivism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13(3), 2014), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and (...)
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