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Reinventing Certainty: The Significance of Ian Hacking’s Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Alan G. Gross
Alan G. Gross*
Affiliation:
Purdue University—Calumet
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Extract

In a recent paper (1989), Ian Hacking has extended his discussion of entity realism, a discussion begun six years ago in the final chapter of Representing and Intervening (1983). This extension allows us to examine for the first time the whole of one impressive attempt to rescue scientific realism from the ever more subtle skepticism of post-positivist thinking (Laudan 1984; Fine 1986). Hacking’s approach complements that of Nancy Cartwright. Like Cartwright, he implies that a full-blown realism about scientific theories and entities can survive neither the facts of history nor the arguments of opponents. Hacking is a realist only about some unobservable entities, those he thinks durable enough to survive most alterations in theory. This is the science that Kuhn said survived even paradigm change.

Electrons are Hacking’s example of a real unobservable entity. Their behavior is so consistent and so well-known that they are used as tools: they are manipulated in the engineering of scientific experiments designed to extend the bounds of the known.

Type
Part VII. Realism
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 421 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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Footnotes

1

I would like to acknowledge the support of a Scholarly Award from Purdue University Calumet.

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