Lecture 2 - Realism Flashcards
Scientific Realism (ScR):
philosophical principles about science, several of which involve being a realist about certain things in science. Daphne is a scientific realist does mean: Daphne accepts the principles of ScR.
Reality according to realism
- Skopological: epistemic aim of science is the discovery of alethically adequate theories and models
- Semantic-epistemic: propositions that qualify as scientific knowledge are made true by reality (semantic realism), specifically by everything in reality these propositions are about (their topics)
Scientific realism vs Kant
science can only be about phenomenal world according to Kant, scientific realist thinks that phenomenal world represents reality, Kantians disagree.
Relation between phenomenal and noumenal world is not to be further discussed, because that would suggest knowledge about noumenal world (which is impossible according to Kant)
Nominalists
- Abstract entities do not exist
- Linguistic idealism: we project language onto reality, without that there is nothing to see
- Diff than Kant: no innate ideas / concepts / categories
- Reality is unknowable (anti-realist) and made knowable by us (through language)
Popper approximate truth
some propositions in theory might be false, but part of theory can still be true, true ones should carry over to better successor theory
Arguments in favour or realism
- Scientific progress (Feyerabend)
o Progress requires criticism requires proliferation (of rival ideas) requires realism
o Anti-realism hinders scientific progress - No miracle (Putnam)
o Succes of science is no miracle, only realism acknowledges that
o Alt explanation: evolutionary process where theories survive because of empirical success
Arguments against realism
- Underdetermination theory (Duham-Quine)
o Observations, measurements, data underdetermine our theories and models, because numerous theories and models are compatible with them
o Choices between observationally equivalent theories should not be empirical, rather they are pragmatic - Pessimistic meta-induction (Laudan)
o Lot of theories and concepts are discarded in history of science, ours will have the same fate someday
o Therefore, it is better to remain agnostic, scientific realism is a lost cause
Defenses against underdetermination theory
- Perhaps temporary predicament: science will develop and be able to differentiate between theories, make them not observationally equivalent
- Occurrence of observationally equivalent rival theories is rare phenomenon in science, Break the UnderDetermination by choosing the one that explains the phenomena best
Defenses against pessimistic meta-induction:
- Some concepts/theories are still with us, step 1 is exaggerated
- Theories and models may go, but referring terms remain
Constructive empiricism
Constructive empiricism:
- Empiricist view of scientific praxes with anti-realist elements
- Three distinctions:
o Epistemic belief vs pragmatic acceptance of propositions
o Observable vs unobservable entities
o Epistemic vs pragmatic virtues of theories and models
Constructive empiricism principles
- Skopological: epistemic aim is to find out everything about every observable entities / construction of empirically adequate theories and models
- Epistemic: propositions that qualify as scientific knowledge are only about observables, those about unobservables are accepted but neither believed nor disbelieved
Remarks on constructive empiricism
- Van fraassen is nominalist: does not believe in abstract entities (goes further than remaining neutral)
- Originally adhered to semantic realism, later problematic
- CEmp resembles kantian idealism: part of reality is epistemically unknowable yet does exist
- Diff with Kantian idealism: still just 1 reality, distinction observable/unobservable would be meaningless for Kantian
Implications of CEmp
- T is empirically adequate iff everything T says about the observable entities is true (in past, present and future)
- To accept T, one believes everything in T about observable entities and remains neutral to everything in T about unobservable entities
- Only epistemic virtues of T are logical adequacy (consistency) and empirical adequacy, rest is all pragmatic and does not influence if theory is knowledge
- Explanations are requests for information, do not license belief in unobservables (they are supererogatory)
- There is no scientific knowledge about unobservables
Remarks on observability
- Distinction is anthropomorphic
- With advanced technology, more becomes observable
Structural realism
- Science reveals the structure of reality, not the nature of the entities in reality
- Appeals to Putnam’s NoMir and avoids Laudan’s PessMI (explain how?)
