Scientific Realism and Scientific Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
Seungbae Park
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice

scholarly journals Realism, empiricism and causal inquiry in International Relations: What is at stake?

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 562-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R C Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Constructive Empiricism ◽  
Van Fraassen ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Bas Van Fraassen ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Everyday World

Discussions of causal inquiry in International Relations are increasingly framed in terms of a contrast between rival philosophical positions, each with a putative methodological corollary — empiricism is associated with a search for patterns of covariation, while scientific realism is associated with a search for causal mechanisms. Scientific realism is, on this basis, claimed to open up avenues of causal inquiry that are unavailable to empiricists. This is misleading. Empiricism appears inferior only if its reformulation by contemporary philosophers of science, such as Bas van Fraassen, is ignored. I therefore develop a fuller account than has previously been provided in International Relations of Van Fraassen’s ‘constructive empiricism’ and how it differs from scientific realism. In light of that, I consider what is at stake in calls for the reconstitution of causal inquiry along scientific realist, rather than empiricist, lines. I argue that scientific realists have failed to make a compelling case that what matters is whether researchers are realists. Constructive empiricism and scientific realism differ only on narrow epistemological and metaphysical grounds that carry no clear implications for the conduct of causal inquiry. Yet, insofar as Van Fraassen has reformed empiricism to meet the scientific realist challenge, this has created a striking disjunction between mainstream practices of causal inquiry in International Relations and the vision of scientific practice that scientific realists and contemporary empiricists share, especially regarding the significance of regularities observed in everyday world politics. Although scientific realist calls for a philosophical revolution in International Relations are overstated, this disjunction demands further consideration.

scholarly journals The Unity of Epistemology and Ontology as an Essential Interpretation of Scientific Realism

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-24
Author(s):  
Maria V. Ismailova
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Subject Areas

Epistemology and ontology are usually regarded as independent philosophical disciplines. However, the idea of their unity provides the basis for the correct interpretation of the concept of scientific realism as the development of the idea of methodological unity in science, which allows one to distinguish various subject areas, but approach them uniformly. Thus, scientific realism is associated with scientific practice as the idea of a single interpretation of phenomena using appropriate theoretical tools.

scholarly journals Probing ‘operational coherence’ in Hasok Chang’s pragmatic realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar El Mawas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Probative Value ◽  
Epistemology Of Science ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Many ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

AbstractHasok Chang is developing a new form of pragmatic scientific realism that aims to reorient the debate away from truth and towards practice. Central to his project is replacing truth as correspondence with his new notion of ‘operational coherence’, which is introduced as: 1) A success term with probative value to judge and guide epistemic activities. 2) A more useful alternative than truth as correspondence in guiding scientific practice. I argue that, given its current construal as neither necessary nor sufficient for success, operational coherence is too weak and fails to satisfy both 1) and 2). I offer a stronger construal of operational coherence which aims to improve on Chang’s account by tying it to systematic success. This makes operational coherence necessary and sufficient for (systematic) success. This new account, if successful, rescues 1) but not 2). I then take a step back and try to locate Chang’s pragmatic realism within the broader pragmatist tradition by comparing his views to the founding fathers Peirce, James and Dewey. I also assess to what extent we should consider Chang’s position ‘realist’, arguing that despite the many relativists threads running through it, Chang’s pragmatic realism is deserving of the realist label because its aims to maximize our learning from reality, even if it falls short of what many traditional realist are happy to accept as realism. I finish with comments on the epistemology of science pointing out that there is nothing intrinsic about a practice-based philosophy of science that precludes having both operational coherence and correspondence and highlighting that given a proper understanding these two notions could, in fact, be understood as complementary. I suggest one way this could be done.

Virtues in Scientific Practice*

2021 ◽  
pp. 200-222
Author(s):  
Dana Tulodziecki
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Puerperal Fever ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Theoretical Virtues ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
History Of

This chapter relocates the debate about the theoretical virtues to the empirical level and argues that the question of whether the virtues (and what virtues, if any) have epistemic import is best answered empirically, through an examination of actual scientific theories and hypotheses in the history of science. As a concrete example of this approach, the chapter discusses a case study from the mid-nineteenth-century debate about the transmissibility of puerperal fever. It argues that this case shows that the virtues are at least sometimes epistemic, but also that neither scientific realists nor anti-realists get it quite right: the virtues, even if epistemic, are not necessarily truth-conducive, but neither are they merely pragmatic. It also argues that the discussion of puerperal fever shows that the virtue question, as it is currently featured in the scientific realism debate, ought to be reformulated. We should examine not just whether a given scientific theory has virtues or not, but rather how debates among competing theories, all of which have some virtues, get resolved.

A Contextual Theory of Scientific Understanding

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk W. de Regt
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Contextual Theory ◽  
Historical Dynamics

This chapter presents a full-fledged pluralistic, contextual theory of scientific understanding that is built on the analysis of intelligibility offered in chapter 2. The basic idea of this contextual theory of understanding is captured by the Criterion for the Understanding of Phenomena, which is articulated in section 4.1. Subsequently, in sections 4.2 and 4.3, the theory is further developed in terms of criteria for intelligibility and an analysis of the role of conceptual tools, and is supported by examples from scientific practice. Section 4.4 elaborates on various aspects of the contextuality of scientific understanding: its historical dynamics, the role of intuitions, and the relation of the theory to existing pragmatic theories of explanation. The theory’s implications for the issues of reductionism and scientific realism are discussed in section 4.5, and the final section defends the contextual theory against the charge that it implies relativism.

scholarly journals Qual o argumento para a Atitude Ontológica Natural?

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-205
Author(s):  
Bruno Malavolta e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Empirical Adequacy ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Local Variety ◽  
Realism Debate

Arthur Fine presented the Natural Ontological Attitude (NOA) as a third alternative between scientific realism and anti-realism by identifying a core position contained in both and rejecting any philosophical addition to this core. At first, Fine’s proposal was understood as offering a doxastic middle ground between believing in the truth of a theory and believing in its empirical adequacy. In this reading, NOA was widely disregarded after Alan Musgrave’s criticisms of it, which characterized Fine’s proposal as a form of realism. After that, NOA was reinterpreted as a local variety of realism focused in changing the attitude used to settle the scientific realism debate, by rejecting global philosophies with an approach external to science, and by considering only the scientific evidence with a contextualist mood. Although this reading clarifies how to understand NOA, there is still no consensus about what is Fine’s argument to support it. I organize the four main interpretations of Fine’s defense and point their main flaws. Finally, I develop some clarifications about NOA in order to solve the flaws of the preceding interpretations, defending that NOA is based upon a prevalence of the epistemic values actually used in scientific practice.

scholarly journals Engaging philosophically with the history of science: two challenges for scientific realism

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Theodore Arabatzis
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Change ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Common Type ◽  
Scientific Concepts ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Over Time

I raise two challenges for scientific realists. The first is a pessimistic meta-induction (PMI), but not of the more common type, which focuses on rejected theories and abandoned entities. Rather, the PMI I have in mind departs from conceptual change, which is ubiquitous in science. Scientific concepts change over time, often to a degree that is difficult to square with the stability of their referents, a sine qua non for realists. The second challenge is to make sense of successful scientific practice that was centered on entities that have turned out to be fictitious

scholarly journals La metafísica del realismo científico, un acercamiento pragmatista. The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism, a Pragmatist Approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paniel Reyes-Cárdenas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Structuralist Approach ◽  
Pragmatic Maxim

En este escrito presento una interpretación del realismo científico desde la tradición pragmatista iniciada por Charles S. Peirce. El artículo discute escrúpulos en contra de la metafísica, y propone un pragmatismo realista, que utiliza la máxima pragmática en sus aspectos operacionalistas e inferenciales: el carácter inferencialista de la máxima enfatiza los procesos de inferencia en los que una proposición se encuentra envuelta; mientras que el carácter operacionalista enfatiza el conjunto de consecuencias traducibles como hábitos de la acción que se siguen de la aceptación de dicha proposición. Mi propuesta es que la máxima de hecho supone ambos aspectos, pero destaca el carácter operacionalista dado el carácter e inclinación experimental de la práctica científica. Dicho pragmatismo de raigambre Peirceana resulta prometedor en filosofía de la ciencia, en tanto que puede contribuir a la investigación autocontrolada, que no es agnóstica con respecto a la metafísica. Hacia el final del artículo ofrezco un ejemplo del acercamiento estructuralista a las matemáticas como un ejemplo de la aplicación de la máxima a problemas conceptuales sobre la realidad de entidades en nuestras mejores teorías científicas.In this essay I advance an interpretation of Scientific Realism from the viewpoint of the pragmatist tradition initiated by Charles S. Peirce. This article argues against scruples against metaphysics and proposes a pragmatistic realism that uses the pragmatic maxim in its inferentialist and operationalist aspects: the inferentialist character of the maxim emphasizes the inferential processes in which the proposition is embedded; meanwhile, the operationalist character of the maxim stresses the set of consequences that can be translated has habits of action followed by the acceptation of a proposition. My proposal is that the maxim actually presupposes both aspects. However, I highlight the value of the operationalist aspect due to the nature and experimental leaning of scientific practice. In addition, the article also claims that such promising pragmatistic realism in the Philosophy of science contributes more to self-controlled inquiry and is not metaphysically agnostic. Towards the end I offer the example of the structuralist approach in mathematics as a token of the application of the maxim to conceptual issues about the reality of items of our best scientific theories.

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