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 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 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.

6. Interpreting the quantum

2021 ◽  
pp. 110-132
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Narrow Range ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Hidden Variable ◽  
Hidden Variable Theories ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Collapse Theories

This chapter surveys various proposals to interpret—that is, make sense of—quantum mechanics. We could attempt to think of quantum mechanics in purely instrumentalist terms, as an algorithm to predict observed experimental results. But this fits badly with scientific practice and is probably not viable. We could attempt to modify quantum mechanics itself to resolve the paradoxes, and there are some simple models that attempt to do that: some are ‘hidden-variable’ theories that add extra properties to the theory, some are ‘dynamical-collapse’ theories that modify the theory’s equations. But none of these models succeed in reproducing quantum theory’s predictions outside a relatively narrow range of applications. Or we could try to take the apparent indefiniteness of quantum mechanics literally, and interpret it as a theory of many parallel worlds. The correct interpretation of quantum mechanics remains controversial, but the search for understanding and interpretation of the theory has led to very substantial scientific results and is likely to lead to more.

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 Relevant videnskabsteori - Fagets videnskabsteori i kuhniansk perspektiv

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Esben Nedenskov Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Science Students ◽  
General Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
General Philosophy Of Science

Mens der er krav om, at fagets eller fagområdets videnskabsteori skal indgå i bacheloruddannelserne på de danske universiteter, er det lagt ud til de ansvarlige for de enkelte uddannelser at fastlægge fagets konkrete indhold. På grundlag af Thomas Kuhns beskrivelse af naturvidenskaben kan man dog fremføre gode grunde til, at undervisning i almene videnskabsteoretiske begreber og spørgsmål bør være en del af faget på de naturvidenskabelige uddannelser, da de studerende ellers vil mangle det teoretiske grundlag for at reflektere kritisk over deres egne fags metoder og forstå andre fags videnskabelige tilgange. Samtidig er undervisning i almen videnskabsteori på disse uddannelser imidlertid forbundet med den udfordring, at de studerende vil have en tendens til ikke at betragte den som relevant for deres videnskabelige profession. Hvis de studerende skal opnå det videnskabsteoretiske grundlag for tværfaglig forståelse og kritisk faglig refleksion, er det derfor afgørende, at undervisningen i almen videnskabsteori sigter efter at forbinde de abstrakte, overordnede diskussioner fra videnskabsteorien med spørgsmål fra konkret videnskabelig praksis. While every bachelor education in the natural sciences at a Danish university must include a course in the philosophy of science of the subject area, it is left to those responsible for each individual bachelor education to determine the specific contents of these courses. Based on Thomas Kuhn’s description of the natural sciences, however, there are good reasons to include general philosophy of science in the curricula for all bachelor courses in the sciences. In particular, to ensure that students have the theoretical resources they need to reflect on their own scientific methods and to understand how scientific investigation is approached in other subject areas. But teaching such general philosophy of science courses to science students comes with a challenge: Many students feel that the content is not relevant to their scientific profession. Our conclusion is that for all science students to benefit from the teaching of philosophy as part of their bachelor courses, it is crucial that general philosophy of science is taught in a way which aims to connect the abstract, general discussions in the philosophy of science with questions from concrete 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

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