Abstract
After a brief presentation of the Verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress, I argue that the notion of estimated verisimilitude is too weak for the purposes of scientific realism. Despite the realist-correspondist intuition that inspires the model—the idea that our theories get closer and closer to ‘the real way the world is’—, Bayesian estimations of truthlikeness (even when combined with the ‘No Miracles Argument’) are not objective enough to sustain a realist position. The main argument of the paper is that, since estimated verisimilitude is not connected to actual verisimilitude, the way the Verisimilitudinarian account works is not in the end different from other antirealist accounts. Finally, I briefly present Alexander Bird’s cumulative approach to scientific progress, and argue that it has a similar problem; Bird has in mind truth in the correspondence sense, but all the metaphysical weight is put on the notion of ‘approximate truth’—whose connection to ‘the real way the world is’ is not clear.
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Notes
Bird's idea of approximate truth is quite different from Niiniluoto's conception of truthlikeness. My point is not that the two notions are similar, but that they encounter a similar problem.
Chakravarrty (2017), for example, distinguishes a metaphysical dimension (is there a real world independent of our knowledge?), a semantic dimension (is truth an objective 'language-world' relation?) and an epistemological dimension (is knowledge about the real world out there possible?). Niiniluoto (1999) adds an axiological dimension (is truth the aim of inquiry?), a methodological dimension (what is the best way for pursuing knowledge?) and an ethical dimension (do moral values exist in reality?). Kuipers (2000) stresses the difference between the 'actualist' and the 'nomic' realist perspective—while the first is interested in the actual natural world (what there is out there), the other concerns what is physically possible, and not merely what is contingently true in our world.
Within VS some distinguish a ‘consequence approach', a ‘content approach' and a ‘similarity approach', to summarize the positions of several authors, such as—in addition to the above mentioned—Schurz, Weingartner, Tichý and Hilpinen. In the contest we are discussing this is not relevant, and I will speak of VS referring to its more general and shared views.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for having pointed that out.
Cevolani and Tambolo (2013b), this is a paraphrase of the title.
The characteristic of Bayesianism is the application of Bayes’s theorem to calculate posterior probabilities on the basis of priors.
They adopt Kant's distinction between notions playing a constitutive role and notions playing a regulative role: “a notion plays a constitutive role if it is adopted as an ultimate criterion to select one out of two rival theories. On the other hand, a notion plays a regulative role if it is assumed and/or used as an inspiration in putting forward a theory, but it does not play then a role in its assessment. An example of a constitutive criterion in theory selection is the ability to pass a given empirical test. A typical example of a regulative principle is the uniformity of Nature; although it cannot be conclusively proved, it is more or less explicitly assumed whenever scientific predictions are made” (Piscopo and Birattari 2010, p. 381).
EVS is the expected verisimilitude, T a theory, e the available evidence, P the probability, Ci a state of affairs, Σi the sum.
Just as there are many different ways to be realist, there are also different varieties of anti-realism. One could be opposed to the metaphysical commitment to the existence of a mind-independent reality, or to the semantic commitment to interpret theories at face value, or even to the epistemological commitment to regard theories as furnishing knowledge of observables and unobservables, etc.
See for example Chakravartty (2017, 4.1).
See Niiniluoto (1999) for an extensive discussion on this point.
Since actual truthlikeness is unknown, we can compare our rational judgments about verisimilitude if we compare, as Niiniluoto writes, “rational degrees of belief about the location of truth” (Niiniluoto 2007, p. 208); this gives us an expected degree of verisimilitude: a certain theory ‘seems more truthlike' than another theory. I think it is fair to assume that our rational belief about the location of ‘the Truth' is given by how well theories work and how strong are their connections with other existing theories.
The fact that some highly successful theories have been abandoned in the history of science (e.g. Newton's mechanics) is compatible with their high estimated verisimilitude: EVS(T/e) can be high even when e refutes T. However, it is also true the opposite: some highly successful theories have been abandoned and have now a low estimated verisimilitude. The conclusion is that estimated success does not seem related to real success.
In the instrumentalist tradition there is the idea that a theory should explain all the apparent observable phenomena by making as simple assumptions as possible.
The probability of hypothesis H given evidence E.
See for example Niiniluoto (2014, p. 74).
The duality between the ideal measure of real verisimilitude and the actual measure of estimated verisimilitude.
References
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Roselli, A. Realists Waiting for Godot? The Verisimilitudinarian and the Cumulative Approach to Scientific Progress. Erkenn 85, 1071–1084 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0065-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0065-x