Entity realism and singularist semirealism

Nánay, Bence

doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1179-9

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Entity Realism is the view that the theoretical entities, processes, and events (that is, unobservables) posited by our best scientific theories are real. As Howard Sankey ( 2008 , p. 43) puts it, “Entity realism is the thesis that the unobservable theoretical entities of science are real.” Bence Nanay ( 2019 , p. 500) agrees with Sankey when he says that, “Realism about entities is the view that unobservable entities that scientific theories postulate really do exist. And, at least according to the proponents of Entity Realism, we can be realist about an unobservable entity a theory postulates without being realist about the theory that postulates it.” One of the key arguments for this view is an argument from the manipulation of theoretical entities, which is based on Ian Hacking’s ( 1983 , p. 23) famous slogan for Entity Realism, “if you can spray them, they are real.” That is to say, if we can do things with the theoretical entities posited by our scientific theories, then we have a good reason to believe that these theoretical entities are real.…”

Section: Entity Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Key Positions in the Contemporary Scientific Realism/Antirealism Debate

Mizrahi

2020

Synthese Library

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In this chapter, I survey key positions in the scientific realism/antirealism debate in contemporary philosophy of science. The first is a selective realist position, which is known as Explanationist Realism, according to which we should believe only in the indispensable parts of our best scientific theories. Those parts that are considered indispensable, the so-called “working posits” (Kitcher, The advancement of science: Science without legend, objectivity without illusions. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993), are the ones that are responsible for, or best explain, the predictive success of our best scientific theories (Psillos , Scientific realism: how science tracks truth. Routledge, London, 1999). The second is an antirealist position with a long history in philosophy of science (see, for example, Duhem, The aim and structure of physical theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Translated from the French by Philip P. Wiener, 1954/1982) , known as Instrumentalism, according to which scientific theories are mere instruments or tools of prediction (Rowbottom, The instrument of science: scientific anti-realism revitalised. Routledge, London, 2019). The third is an influential antirealist position, which is known as Constructive Empiricism and is due to Bas van Fraassen (The scientific image. Oxford University Press, New York, 1980), according to which science aims at empirical adequacy, not truth or approximate truth. The fourth is another influential realist position, which is known as Entity Realism and is due to Ian Hacking (Representing and intervening: introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1983), according to which one is justified in taking a realist stance with respect to entities that can be manipulated and that facilitate interventions in nature (Sankey, Howard, Scientific realism and the rationality of science. Ashgate, Hampshire, 2008). The fifth is another selective realist position, which is known as Structural Realism, according to which we should be realists, not about theoretical entities or processes, but rather about structures (Worrall, Dialectica 43(1–2):99–124, 1989; Ladyman, Stud. Hist. Philos. Sci. A 29(3):409–424, 1998; French, The structure of the world: metaphysics and representation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) .

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Section: Entity Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10.1007/978-3-030-58047-6_2#Sec1). As Bence Nanay ( 2019 , p. 500) argues, the “debate about theories is very different from, and logically independent of, the debate about unobservable entities.”…”

Section: Entity Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Key Positions in the Contemporary Scientific Realism/Antirealism Debate

Mizrahi

2020

Synthese Library

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“…In response, Nanay (2013Nanay ( , 2019 argues that entity realists should be realist only about 'singular representations,' which attribute 'property-tokens' to particulars (in particular, to entities). Concrete property-tokens, rather than abstract property-types, are manipulable in https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.18 Published online by Cambridge University Press experiments (Nanay 2019, 510), and accordingly are known via singular representations.…”

Section: Singularist Semirealismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nonetheless, my focus in this paper is on those scholars who explicitly consider their views as developments of entity realism. In his chapter on entity realism in The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism , Egg describes his causal realism as “a modified version of Cartwright’s [entity] realism.” (2017, 129); Eronen asserts that “I formulate a new robustness-based version of entity realism” (2017, 2341); and Nanay also argues that “the only way entity realists can resist the pull of straight scientific realism about theories is by endorsing … [his] singularist semirealism” (2019, 499).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dialogue among Recent Views of Entity Realism

Khalili

2023

Philos. sci.

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This paper concerns the recent revival of entity realism. Having been started with the work of Ian Hacking, Nancy Cartwright and Ronald Giere, the project of entity realism has recently been developed by Matthias Egg, Markus Eronen, and Bence Nanay. The paper opens a dialogue among these recent views on entity realism and integrates them into a more advanced view. The result is an epistemological criterion for reality: the property-tokens of a certain type may be taken as real insofar as only they can be materially inferred from the evidence obtained in a variety of independent ways of detection.

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“…My impression, after the study of Worrall's chapter, is that he has added few arguments or clarifications to his previous work on structural realism. His arguments against entity realism and selective realism are somewhat outdated, as he does not address recent developments in both debates (on recent accounts of entity realism, see Egg 2014, Eronen 2015, Nanay 2019, and Khalili 2022; on selective realism, see Vickers 2017). Nor does he discuss other forms of realism such as perspectival realism.…”

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confidence: 99%

Wenceslao J. Gonzalez: New Approaches to Scientific Realism

Khalili

2022

J Gen Philos Sci

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My evaluation depends on what an "approach" actually means. Should it be defined as (1) a way of dealing with or thinking about a subject or (2) as a proposal or suggestion concerning the subject? Let us call these two senses approach1 and approach2. A fresh idea or view may constitute a novel approach2 even if it does not employ a new way of dealing with or thinking about the subject. Approaches1such as logical and conceptual analyses, the study of historical cases or that of cases from contemporary sciences, as well as pragmatic and cognitive approaches1have been applied in different chapters of this collection. None of these approaches1 are unprecedented.That said, among the approaches1 of the chapters, I would like to highlight the cognitive approach1 of Thomas Nickles's chapter and the formal approach1 of Theo Kuipers's. When I read the book, the approaches1 of these two chapters struck me as their noticeable features. Although neither of these approaches1 are essentially novel, in contrast to those of the other chapters, they are not

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Entity realism and singularist semirealism

Cited by 8 publications

References 56 publications

Key Positions in the Contemporary Scientific Realism/Antirealism Debate

Key Positions in the Contemporary Scientific Realism/Antirealism Debate

A Dialogue among Recent Views of Entity Realism

Wenceslao J. Gonzalez: New Approaches to Scientific Realism

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