Summary
In his paper “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”, Larry Laudan offered one of the most powerful criticisms of scientific realism. I defend here that although Laudan’s criticism is right, this does not refute the realist position. The thesis that Laudan confutes is a much stronger thesis than realist needs to maintain. As I will exemplify with Salmon’s statistical-relevance model, a less strict notion of explanation would allow us to claim that (approximate) truth is the best explanation for such success, even if it is accepted that there can be cases of unsuccessful (approximately) true theories and cases of successful false theories.
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Diéguez-Lucena, A. Why Does Laudan’s Confutation of Convergent Realism Fail?. J Gen Philos Sci 37, 393–403 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-006-9021-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-006-9021-6