Abstract
This paper develops an approach to the scientific realism debate that has three main features. First, our approach admits multiple criteria of reality, i.e., criteria that, if satisfied, warrant belief in the reality of hypothetical entities. Second, our approach is experiment-based in the sense that it focuses on criteria that are satisfied by experiments as opposed to theories. Third, our approach is local in the sense that it focuses on the reality of particular kinds of entities. We apply this approach to a case that many philosophers have debated, namely, Jean Perrin’s work on atoms and molecules. We provide a novel account by arguing that Perrin’s work warranted a minimal belief in the reality of atoms and molecules as unobservable, discrete particles by satisfying a criterion of reality that we call experimental determination of number per unit. By doing so, he confirmed Avogadro’s hypothesis, but he did not confirm other key constituents of the atomic theories involved. We argue that our account of Perrin’s work is preferable to several other accounts, and we use this as a reason in support of our approach to the realism debate more generally.
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Notes
By saying this, we don’t claim that all criteria of reality are either experimental or theoretical because there may be criteria (for example, observation) that are neither theoretical nor experimental.
The French originals were published in 1909 and 1913, respectively.
Hudson (2020, p. 38) sees this as an analogical inference from observable granules to unobservable molecules of gases.
That said, liters and molecules of water are, of course, countable. The point is that the substance itself is not countable—we cannot count ‘waters’ as we can liters and molecules.
See, e.g., Tan’s (2022) recent discussion of these two cases, and of hypothetical modeling more generally.
According to Perrin (1916, p. 20), “[t]hese consequences of Avogadro’s hypothesis have been fully confirmed by chemical analysis and the measurement of densities in the gaseous state, for thousands of substances, no single exception having been discovered.” In addition, the gas law is also stated as follows: “at a fixed temperature the density of a gas (mass contained in unit volume) is proportional to the pressure” (Perrin, 1916, p. 17). According to Perrin (1916, p. 17), the gas law stated in this form has been known since the 17th century.
In what follows, we rely on the 1916 English translation Atoms. All italics in the quotations of Perrin (1916) are in the English translation.
Hudson (2014, pp. 141–149) discusses the case of dark matter and whether the method he calls “targeted testing” can demonstrate the existence of dark matter.
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Acknowledgements
We presented an earlier version of this paper at the Ninth Asia-Pacific Conference on Philosophy of Science, which took place on July 2-3, 2021. We would like to thank the audience for their helpful questions and comments. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, which greatly improved the paper. Finally, we would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan for supporting our work on this paper (MOST 108-2410-H-194-002-MY3; MOST 109-2410-H-010-014-MY2).
Funding
This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan (MOST 108-2410-H-194-002-MY3; MOST 109-2410-H-010-014-MY2).
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Chen, RL., Hricko, J. Experimental criteria for accessing reality: Perrin’s experimental demonstration of atoms and molecules. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 13, 13 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00517-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-023-00517-w