Scientific Realism

Edited by Howard Sankey (University of Melbourne)
Assistant editor: Zili Dong
About this topic
Summary Scientific realism is primarily a view about theoretical science.  According to a classic (or "standard") form of scientific realism, the unobservable "theoretical" entities postulated by scientific theories (e.g. atoms, electrons) are real and theoretical claims about those entities are true or approximately true.  Scientific realism contrasts with commonsense realism, which is realism about the observable entities of the ordinary, everyday world.  Scientific realism may be combined with commonsense realism, though some philosophers take there to be a conflict between science and common sense, which may make it difficult to reconcile the two doctrines.  Some scientific realists ("entity realists") emphasise the reality of theoretical entities while downplaying or avoiding altogether talk of the truth of theories.  Some scientific realists (e.g. "structural realists") downplay or reject the reality of theoretical entities while emphasising structural aspects of theory or reality. Some anti-realists (e.g. "constructive empiricists") admit commonsense realism while rejecting or withholding judgment about scientific realism.  The classic opponent of scientific realism ("instrumentalism") denies that theoretical discourse about theoretical entities is to be interpreted in literal fashion, instead taking the latter to be fictitious entities which play at most a role in prediction at the observational level.  The major argument for scientific realism is the "success argument" (also known as the "no miracles argument" and the "ultimate argument") that scientific realism is the best explanation of the success of science.  Scientific realists who emphasize truth in their formulation of the view require an account of approximate truth or verisimilitude because they tend to see science as progressing toward truth rather than having already reached the final truth about the world (this view is sometimes known as "convergent realism").  The main arguments against scientific realism are that the truth of theory is radically underdetermined by empirical data and the so-called "pessimistic induction" from the falsity of past theories to the likely falsity of current theories.  An important response to the latter objection is that scientific realists should only take specific parts of theories to be true or approximately true rather than take the entirety of a theory to be true or approximately true (so-called "deployment realism"). 
Key works Ian Hacking's book, Representing and Intervening Hacking 1983, provides general discussion of the issues relating to scientific realism, emphasising entity realism.  Stathis Psillos's book, Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth Psillos 1999, also provides general coverage, while developing a deployment realist approach. Two important collections are Jarrett Leplin (ed.) Scientific Realism Leplin 1984, and the more recent Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism edited by Juha Saatsi Saatsi 2017.  Larry Laudan's paper, 'A Confutation of Convergent Realism', presents criticism of scientific realism that is sometimes understood as a pessimistic induction Laudan 1981.  Bas van Fraassen's book, The Scientific Image Van Fraassen Bas 1980, presents criticism of scientific realism and articulates the constructive empiricist form of anti-realism.  For development of structural realism, see John Worrall, 'Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?' Worrall 1989 and James Ladyman 'What is Structural Realism?' Ladyman 1998.
Introductions See Michael Devitt's entry on scientific realism in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary PhilosophyDevitt 2005 and Anjan Chakravartty's entry on scientific realism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Chakravartty 2011.  For a quite basic introduction to scientific realism, see Howard Sankey, 'What is Scientific Realism?' Sankey 2000, which is also available in French translation Sankey 2002.
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  1. On the heuristics of the Higgs mechanism.Sébastien Rivat - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45:351–367.
    This article has two aims. First, I undertake an extensive review of the Higgs mechanism and its connections with spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Goldstone theorem. I take the opportunity to expound and discuss a certain number of philosophical issues, amongst them surplus structure and redundancies. Second, I offer a defence of the metaphor according to which ‘gauge fields eat Goldstone bosons to gain a mass’ as sensible rather than merely misleading. It is sensible because there is a direct physical (...)
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  2. Social Science and the Naturalization of Social Metaphysics: Old Biases and New Advances.Amanda Bryant - forthcoming - Journal of Social Ontology.
    Some philosophers challenge the advisability of naturalizing social metaphysics by appeal to social science. They argue that social science fails to meet criteria for realist commitment, such as unity and novel predictive power, and that social science would therefore be a poor basis for naturalization. These skeptical challenges are rooted in traditions in the philosophy of science that have held the social sciences in poor esteem. Through a case study that highlights the ways in which archaeology is methodologically converging on (...)
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  3. Emporgeirrt! Evolutionäre Erkenntnisse in Natur und Kultur.Helmut Fink & Rüdiger Vaas (eds.) - 2025 - Stuttgart: Hirzel.
    Alles entwickelt sich: der Kosmos mit seinen Strukturen, das Leben auf der Erde und die atemberaubend kreative Intelligenz (auch die künstliche) sowie unser Verständnis von alledem. Dieses Buch ist der menschlichen und nichtmenschlichen Natur auf der Spur. Es handelt von Grundsatzfragen der Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie, von Präzisierungen der modernen Naturphilosophie und von vielen weiteren Facetten humanistischer Kultur. Leitidee ist die Einheit des Wissens im Lichte der Evolution. -/- Gerhard Vollmer zählt mit seinen Publikationen (die meisten im Hirzel-Verlag!) zur Erkenntnis- und (...)
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  4. On Electromagnet Rays and Perception - 2.Albert Halliday - manuscript
    This essay looks at electromagnet rays and their role in visual perception. It is an update of the earlier version, of similar title.
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  5. Typical Quantum States of the Universe are Observationally Indistinguishable.Eddy Keming Chen & Roderich Tumulka - 2024
    This paper is about the epistemology of quantum theory. We establish a new result about a limitation to knowledge of its central object---the quantum state of the universe. We show that, if the universal quantum state can be assumed to be a typical unit vector from a high-dimensional subspace of Hilbert space (such as the subspace defined by a low-entropy macro-state as prescribed by the Past Hypothesis), then no observation can determine (or even just narrow down significantly) which vector it (...)
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  6. Less Work for Theories of Natural Kinds.Matthew H. Slater - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    What sort of philosophical work are natural kinds suited for? Scientific realists often contend that they provide the ‘aboutness’ of successful of scientific classification and explain their epistemic utility (among other side hustles). Recent history has revealed this to be a tricky job — particularly given the present naturalistic climate of philosophy of science. As a result, we’ve seen an explosion of different sorts of theories. This phenomenon that has suggested to some that philosophical theorizing about natural kinds has reached (...)
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  7. (1 other version)Mathematics and society reunited: The social aspects of Brouwer's intuitionism.Kati Kish Bar-On - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 108:28-37.
    Brouwer's philosophy of mathematics is usually regarded as an intra-subjective, even solipsistic approach, an approach that also underlies his mathematical intuitionism, as he strived to create a mathematics that develops out of something inner and a-linguistic. Thus, points of connection between Brouwer's mathematical views and his views about and the social world seem improbable and are rarely mentioned in the literature. The current paper aims to challenge and change that. The paper employs a socially oriented prism to examine Brouwer's views (...)
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  8. Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity.Ruward Mulder & James Read - 2024 - Synthese 204 (4):1-29.
    Realism about general relativity (GR) seems to imply realism about spacetime curvature. The existence of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) calls this into question, for (a) TEGR is set in a torsionful but flat spacetime, and (b) TEGR is empirically equivalent to GR. Knox (Stud Hist Philos Sci Part B Stud Hist Philos Mod Phys 42(4):264–275, 2011) claims that there is no genuine underdetermination between GR and TEGR; we call this verdict into question by isolating and addressing her (...)
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  9. The Reality Effect: On Adam Timmins’ Towards a Realist Philosophy of History.Georg Gangl - 2024 - Journal of the Philosophy of History 18 (2):235-248.
    In Towards a Realist Philosophy of History, Adam Timmins sets out to develop a non-naïve form of realism that can account for the majority of the practices and products of historiography. In particular, he claims that we should be realists about facts, colligations, and narrative. While being sympathetic to some form of realism about all of these, this review essay critically discusses both Timmins’ actual arguments for historiographic realism and the approach that should be taken to the philosophical issue itself. (...)
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  10. Ultimate-Humeanism.Samuel John Andrews - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Super-Humeans argue that the most parsimonious ontology of the natural world compatible with our best physical theories consists exclusively of particles and the distance relations between them. This paper argues by contrast that Super-Humean reduction goes insufficiently far, by showing there to be a more parsimonious ontology compatible with physics: Ultimate-Humeanism. This novel view posits an ontology consisting solely of the particles and distance relations required for the existence of a single brain. Super-Humeans impose conditions on what counts as an (...)
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  11. The Classical Stance: Dennett’s Criterion in Wallacian quantum mechanics.Ruward Mulder - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 107 (C):11-24.
    David Wallace's `Dennett's Criterion' plays a key part in establishing realist claims about the existence of a multiverse emerging from the mathematical formalism of quantum physics, even after decoherence is fully appreciated. Although the philosophical preconditions of this criterion are not neutral, they are rarely explicitly addressed conceptually. I tease apart three: (I) a rejection of conceptual bridge laws even in cases of inhomogeneous reduction; (II) a reliance on the pragmatic notion of usefulness to highlight quasi-classical patterns, as seen in (...)
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  12. What’s Left of Philosophy?François Maurice - 2024 - Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse 3:300-312.
    We continue our examination of the idea that there is a sub-discipline in philosophy of science, philosophy in science, whose researchers use philosophical tools to advance solutions to scientific problems. Rather, we propose that these tools are standard epistemic, cognitive, or intellectual tools at work in all rational activity, and therefore these researchers engage in scientific or metascientific research.
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  13. Epistemic Virtues and the Success of Science.Dana Tulodziecki - 2014 - In Abrol Fairweather & Owen Flanagan (eds.), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Cham: Synthese Library. pp. 247-268.
    The standard underdetermination argument relies on the assumption that empirical evidence is the only epistemic constraint on theory-choice. One prominent response to this has been the invocation of theoretical virtues, properties of our scientific theories that scientific realists take to be epistemic in nature and that are such that, if they are had by our theories, make it more likely for those theories to be true. It thus becomes a main goal for scientific realists to establish a link between the (...)
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  14. Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse - No. 3 - Metascientific Epistemology.François Maurice - 2024 - Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse 3:1-312.
    [[THIS IS THE COMPLETE THIRD ISSUE OF MΕTASCIENCE]] -/- This third issue of the journal Mεtascience continues the characterization of this new branch of knowledge that is metascience. If it is new, it is not in a radical sense since Mario Bunge practiced it in an exemplary way, since logical positivists were accused of practicing only a mere metascience, since scientists have always practiced it implicitly, and since some philosophers no longer practice philosophy but rather metascience, but without characterizing it (...)
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  15. Nothing but a useful tool? (F)utility and the free-energy principle.Matteo Colombo - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e191.
    Bruineberg and collaborators distinguish three philosophical positions about the status of Markov blankets in the context of active inference modelling, namely: literalism, realism, and instrumentalism. They criticize the first two positions and suggest that instrumentalism is “less problematic but also less interesting” (sect. 6.1.2, para. 5) Here, I sketch how literalists and realists might reply to Bruineberg et al.'s criticisms, and I explain why instrumentalism is more interesting and contentious than what Bruineberg and collaborators suggest.
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  16. Scientific Understanding and Representation: Modeling in the Physical Sciences.Insa Lawler, Kareem Khalifa & Elay Shech (eds.) - 2022 - New York, NY: Routledge.
    This volume brings together leading scholars working on understanding and representation in philosophy of science. It features a critical conversation format between contributors that advances debates concerning scientific understanding, scientific representation, and their delicate interplay.
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  17. Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft. Zum Spannungsverhältnis zweier Erfahrungsweisen.Gregor Schiemann - 2021 - Berlin: De Gruyter.
    Das Verhältnis von Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft befindet sich mit ungewissem Ausgang in stetiger Bewegung. In diesem Prozess ist das treibende Element die Wissenschaft, die Technisierungen ermöglicht und mit ihren Erkenntnissen die Welt überzieht. Trotz der fortschreitenden Verwissenschaftlichung hat sich die Lebenswelt jedoch ihre Eigenständigkeit bewahrt. Die vorliegenden Studien tragen zur Aufklärung dieses erstaunlichen Phänomens bei. Sie weisen Strukturdifferenzen der beiden Erfahrungsweisen auf und zeigen, wie sie mit- und gegeneinander existieren. Zugleich wird deutlich, dass ein Ende der lebensweltlichen Eigenständigkeit einen fundamentalen (...)
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  18. Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse - No. 2 - Metascientific Ontology.François Maurice - 2022 - Mεtascience: Scientific General Discourse 2:1-260.
    [[THIS IS THE COMPLETE SECOND ISSUE OF MΕTASCIENCE]] -/- This second issue of the journal Mεtascience continues the char acterization of this new branch of knowledge that is metasci ence. If it is new, it is not in a radical sense since Mario Bunge practiced it in an exemplary way, since logical positivists were accused of practicing only a mere metascience, since scientists have always practiced it implicitly, and since some philosophers no longer practice philosophy but rather metascience, but without (...)
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  19. Philosophical foundations of effective field theories.Sébastien Rivat & Alexei Grinbaum - 2020 - European Physical Journal A 56 (3).
    This survey covers some of the main philosophical debates raised by the framework of effective field theories during the last decades. It is centered on three issues: whether effective field theories underpin a specific realist picture of the world, whether they support an anti-reductionist picture of physics, and whether they provide reasons to give up the ultimate aspiration of formulating a final and complete physical theory. Reviewing the past and current literature, we argue that effective field theories do not give (...)
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  20. (1 other version)Goodman’s Paradox, Hume’s Problem, Goodman-Kripke Paradox: Three Different Issues.Beppe Brivec - manuscript
    On page 14 of "Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences" (section 4 of chapter 1) by Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin is written: “Since ‘blue’ and ‘green’ are interdefinable with ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’, the question of which pair is basic and which pair derived is entirely a question of which pair we start with”. This paper points out that an example of interdefinability is also that one about the predicate “grueb”, which is a predicate that applies to (...)
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  21. Levels of the world. Limits and extensions of Nicolai hartmann’s and Werner heisenberg’s conceptions of levels.Gregor Schiemann - 2019 - HORIZON. Studies in Phenomenology 8 (1):103-122.
    The conception that the world can be represented as a system of levels of being can be traced back to the beginnings of European philosophy and has lost little of its plausibility in the meantime. One of the important modern conceptions of levels was developed by Nicolai Hartmann. It exhibits remarkable similarities and contrasts with the classification of the real developed by Werner Heisenberg in his paper Ordnung der Wirklichkeit (Order of Reality). In my contribution I will introduce these two (...)
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  22. (2 other versions)Scientific Realism.Mikael Karlsson, Andre Kukla, Jarrett Leplin, David Papineau, Stathis Psillos & Howard Sankey - 2006 - In Patrick Greenough & Michael Patrick Lynch (eds.), Truth and realism. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 35-54.
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  23. (1 other version)Mehr Seinsschichten für die Welt? Vergleich und Kritik der Schichtenkonzeptionen von Nicolai Hartmann und Werner Heisenberg.Gregor Schiemann - 2012 - In G. Hertung & M. Wunsch (eds.), Nicolai Hartmann – Von der Systemphilosophie zur Systemetischen Philosophi. pp. 85-104.
    Ich thematisiere die beiden Konzeptionen als Varianten der wissenschaftlichen Weltsicht. Der Reiz des Vergleichs liegt aber weniger in den Gemeinsamkeiten als vielmehr in den Differenzen und den dabei hervortretenden Desideraten der beiden Konzeptionen. Heisenberg versteht sein Schichtenmodell nicht wie Hartmann als Fortsetzung und Zusammenfassung vorangehender philosophischer Bemühungen, sondern als einen Bruch mit den Hauptströmungen der philosophischen Tradition. In der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Versuche um eine Bestimmung der Weltstruktur sieht er statt einer Generaltendenz, die langfristig auf eine Annäherung an die Wahrheit (...)
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  24. Werner Heisenberg.Gregor Schiemann - 2008 - C.H. Beck.
    Gregor Schiemann führt allgemeinverständlich in das Denken dieses Physikers ein. Thema sind die Erfahrungen und Überlegungen, die Heisenberg zu seinen theoretischen Erkenntnissen geführt haben, die wesentlichen Inhalte dieser Erkenntnisse sowie die Konsequenzen, die er daraus für die Geschichte der Physik und das wissenschaftliche Weltbild gezogen hat. Heisenbergs Vorstellungswelt durchzieht durch ein Spannungsverhältnis, das heute noch das Denken vieler Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler bewegt. Er ist um ein umfassendes Verständnis der Naturprozesse bemüht, zugleich aber von der Berechenbarkeit und Beherrschbarkeit von Phänomenen auch (...)
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Varieties of Scientific Realism
  1. Haptic realism for neuroscience.M. Chirimuuta - 2023 - Synthese 202 (3):1-16.
    Recent work in philosophy of science has shown how the challenges posed by extremely complex systems require that scientists employ a range of modelling strategies, leading to partial perspectives that make apparently conflicting claims about the target (Mitchell 2009b, Longino 2013). The brain is of course extremely complex, and the same arguments apply here. In this paper I present a variety of perspectivism called _haptic realism_. This account foregrounds the process by which the instrumental goals of neuroscience shape the way (...)
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  2. Desacuerdos profundos sobre ontología científica.Bruno Borge, Sasha D'Onofrio & Ignacio Madroñal - 2022 - Cuadernos de Filosofía 1 (40):139-156.
    Los desacuerdos acerca de la ontología científica han sido frecuentemente reconstruidos como el resultado de una disputa entre stances epistémicas rivales. En el presente trabajo, (i) caracterizamos algunos de estos desacuerdos como desacuerdos profundos. Además, (ii) mostramos que los desacuerdos profundos sobre ontología científica pueden surgir no solo de la adopción de diferentes stances epistémicas, sino entre posiciones que se encuadran dentro de una misma stance. El desarrollo de ese punto nos permite, a su vez, establecer una distinción entre tipos (...)
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  3. Different Ways to be a Realist: A Response to Pincock.Angela Potochnik - 2022 - In Insa Lawler, Kareem Khalifa & Elay Shech (eds.), Scientific Understanding and Representation: Modeling in the Physical Sciences. New York, NY: Routledge.
    In his chapter in this volume, Christopher Pincock develops an argument for scientific realism based on scientific understanding, and he argues that Giere’s (2006) and my (2017, 2020) commitment to the context-dependence of scientific understanding or knowledge renders our views unable to account for an essential step in how scientists come to know. Meanwhile, in my chapter in this volume, I motivate a view that I call "causal pattern realism." In this response to Pincock's chapter, I will sketch a revised (...)
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  4. Explanatory Elucidation and Scientific Realism.Alberto Cordero - 2012 - Epistemologia 1:59-70.
    Explanatory elucidation occurs when a theory has one or more of its assumptions explained by another independently successful theory. Because explanatory elucidation springs from independently supported theories, it improves the credibility of the assumptions it casts light on, hence its relevance for realists. But cases can be pointed to where explanatory elucidation has badly failed to identify truthful components. One way to address this challenge is by trying to find additional epistemic support for seemingly meritorious theory-parts. Resource in this regard, (...)
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  5. The tenets of hermeneutical realism.Dimitri Ginev - 2012 - Epistemologia 2:264-280.
    This article explores and attempts to resolve some issues that arise when at stake is the need to harmonize philosophical hermeneutics with a kind of realist philosophy of science. The author takes issue with established position in the realism-antirealism controversy. Interventionism is criticized for a residual Cartesian dualism. Cognitive relativism is debated by developing a concept of situated transcendence in the constitution of objects of inquiry. Non-behaviorist arguments against scheme-content dualism are advanced that appeal to context- sensitive theory of meaning. (...)
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  6. Vérité partielle et réalisme scientifique: une approche bungéenne.Jean-Pierre Marquis - 2020 - Mεtascience: Discours Général Scientifique 1:293-314.
    Le réalisme scientifique occupe une place centrale dans le système philosophique de Mario Bunge. Au cœur de cette thèse, on trouve l’affirmation selon laquelle nous pouvons connaître le monde partiellement. Il s’ensuit que les théories scientifiques ne sont pas totalement vraies ou totalement fausses, mais plutôt partiellement vraies et partiellement fausses. Ces énoncés sur la connaissance scientifique, à première vue plausible pour quiconque est familier avec la pratique scientifique, demandent néanmoins à être clarifiés, précisés et, ultimement, à être inclus dans (...)
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  7. Hypothesis and Realism.David K. Johnson - 1995 - Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15 (1):80-85.
  8. Science and Ontology.Yvonne Raley - 2007 - The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 12:143-147.
    Many philosophers regard scientific practice as the final arbiter in ontology. In this short paper, I argue that the very philosophers who profess to derive their ontological commitments from scientific practice impose certain views on the theories established by that practice that the practice itself does not support. This is not consistent with their view that science tells us what there is.
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  9. (1 other version)Scientific virtues.Doren A. Recker - unknown
    Chapter I describes diachronic realism and shows why it is a version of what is called 'metaphysical realism'. Consequently, I argue that recent claims that 'metaphysical realism' is incoherent are unfounded. Chapter II argues that certain anti-realist positions involve an insufficient treatment of 'meaning' and 'reference' for theoretical terms. I review much of the current work on theories of reference and show that these incommensurability positions are bankrupt given either of the two most promising theories of reference. Chapter III argues (...)
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  10. Réalisme scientifique.Pierre-Yves Rochefort - 2016 - L'Encyclopédie Philosophique.
    L’attitude réaliste constitue de prime abord la posture du sens commun vis-à-vis de la science. Elle consiste à attribuer à la science l’objectif de décrire littéralement la réalité tout en lui reconnaissant la capacité, en vertu de ses méthodes, d’atteindre ce but. Si le réalisme scientifique apparait comme représentant le sens commun, il a dû, au courant du siècle dernier, s’ériger en véritable posture philosophique argumentée devant l’influence grandissante des différentes formes d’antiréalismes. Dans la mesure où la posture qu’un philosophe (...)
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  11. (1 other version)Hidden Realism.Mutsuo M. Yanase - 1983 - Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 6 (3):129-138.
  12. (1 other version)Hidden Realism.Mutsuo M. Yanase - 1980 - Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 5 (5):225-244.
  13. Man in Scientific Age.Satyendra Nath Bose - 1964 - Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 2 (4):232-236.
  14. Editorial Preface.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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  15. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Molecular Reality. A Perspective on the Scientific Work of Jean Perrin. By Mary Jo Nye. New York: Elsevier, and London: Macdonald, 1972. Pp. xii + 201. £5. [REVIEW]S. B. Sinclair - 1974 - British Journal for the History of Science 7 (3):300-301.
  16. Essay Collections G. N. Cantor and M. J. S. Hodge , Conceptions of ether: studies in the history of ether theories, 1740–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. x + 351. £30.00. [REVIEW]Crosbie Smith - 1983 - British Journal for the History of Science 16 (2):196-198.
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  17. Theodore Arabatzis, Representing Electrons: A Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. xiv+295. ISBN 0-226-02420-2. $70.00, £44.50 . ISBN 0-226-02421-0. $28.00, £18.00. [REVIEW]Graeme Gooday - 2008 - British Journal for the History of Science 41 (1):149-151.
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  18. The Scientific Voice. Scott L. Montgomery.Carolyn Miller - 1996 - Isis 87 (4):707-708.
  19. (1 other version)Role-Player Realism.Paul Teller - 2016
    In practice theoretical terms are open-ended in not being attached to anything completely specific. This raises a problem for scientific realism: If there is no one completely specific kind of thing that might be in the extension of “atom”, what is it to claim that atoms exist? A realist’s solution is to say that in theoretical contexts of mature atom-theories there are things that play the role of atoms as characterized in that theory-context. The paper closes with a laundry list (...)
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  20. Philosophy and Scientific Realism.J. J. C. Smart - 1963 - New York,: Routledge.
  21. Abiogenesis as a theoretical challenge: chance and directionality through the lens of scientific realism.Loris Serafino - unknown
    In this paper I intend to reflect on the intellectual rationale underlying the origin of life scientific research efforts by reconsidering some of its conceptual premises and difficulties.
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  22. Evandro Agazzi on scientific objectivity: Evandro Agazzi: Scientific objectivity and its contexts. Berlin: Springer, 2014, XVII+482p, €138 HB.Michel Ghins - 2015 - Metascience 25 (1):151-157.
  23. ¿Desarrollo progresivo de la ciencia sin continuidad referencial? Acerca del realismo de Psillos y la teoría del germoplasma de Weismann. [REVIEW]Mariana Córdoba - 2010 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 14 (3):335-348.
    In this paper I argue for the idea that, throughout the history of science, there are some cases of theory change that would show how science develops with no referential continuity. For this purpose, I analyze Psillos’ proposal of a theory of reference used to account for referential continuity in conceptual transitions. This kind of continuity is requested by Psillos —as by other philosophers— in his defense of scientific realism. By means of a historical case, the theory of germplasm of (...)
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  24. The brain in the vat and the question of metaphysical realism.J. J. C. Smart - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 35 (2):237-247.
    This article indicates some ways in which the fantasy of the brain in the vat has been used in thought experiments to discuss important philosophical problems. The first has to do with scepticism about the external world. The second has to do with Hilary Putnam’s arguments for the indeterminacy of reference and his rejection of metaphysical realism. The third issue to which the brain in the vat is relevant has to do with the difference between broad and narrow content of (...)
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  25. Defending realism: Reflections on Karl Rogers’ *Metaphysics of Experimental Physics.John Spencer - 2007 - Journal of Critical Realism 6 (1):126-147.
    The main goal of this paper is to argue against Karl Rogers's attacks on realism in physics. Rogers argues that electrons do not exist independently of the relevant socio-technological process, but I show that such an assumption would make our best scientific theories incomprehensible. While the paper supports Rogers's attempts to refute positivism, it demonstrates that his own position is positivistic, and it corrects his overemphasis on the roles of technology and the experimenter. Rogers assumes that the founders of modern (...)
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  26. Bayesianism v. scientific realism.Peter Milne - 2003 - Analysis 63 (4):281-288.
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