Scientific realism: what it is, the contemporary debate, and new directions

Abstract

This special issue was produced in connection with a conference, 'Science: The Real Thing?' The idea behind the conference was to assess the state of the debate on scientific realism, broadly construed, and to investigate or propose new directionsnew positions, and new arguments about old positions -in said debate.In this contribution, I do three things. First, I provide a characterization of scientific realism, with a special focus on the question: 'What's at stake in the realism debate?' This is a surprisingly controversial and tricky matter, which was discussed at length in the closing round table discussion of the conference. Second, I provide an overview of the key developments in this debate over the past decade. 1 Third, I provide a brief overview of the other contributions to this special issue, and explain how they relate to the aforementioned developments.1 It is much easier to reach agreement about what counts as a contribution to the debate than it is to reach agreement about how to characterize the debate. This should be unsurprising; similarly, it is much easier to reach agreement about what counts as a science -or, for that matter, a chair or a tablethan it is to reach agreement about a definition, or a significant partial definition, thereof.Preprint -F/coming in Synthese 2 What Is Scientific Realism?Given the extent to which scientific realism has been discussed -for a flavour of this, consider that The Scientific Image has been cited 6000 times since 1980 and that Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth has been cited 1000 times since 1999, by Google scholar's estimations -one might expect there to be considerable agreement on what, precisely, scientific realism involves. But even a perfunctory survey of the literature purporting to be on the topic dashes that hope, for as Chakravartty ( 2011) pithily notes:It is perhaps only a slight exaggeration to say that scientific realism is characterized differently by every author who discusses it … 2The two influential monographs mentioned above, for instance, diverge considerably on the meaning of 'scientific realism'. On the one hand, van Fraassen (1980: 8) asserts:Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. This is the correct statement of scientific realism.2 Similar sentiments are expressed elsewhere. For example, Hacking (1983: 26) writes 'Definitions of 'scientific realism' merely point the way. It is more an attitude than a clearly stated doctrine… Scientific realism and anti-realism are … movements. ' and Leplin (1984: 1) notes that 'Like the Equal Rights Movement, scientific realism is a majority position whose advocates are so divided as to appear a minority.'

A methodological argument against scientific realism

“…My aim is to explore the prospects for such forms of scientific realism, and especially their vulnerability to criticisms of a methodological character. 2 For a detailed analysis of scientific realism with reference to the history of philosophy of science, and an argument that the methodological thesis is central to scientific realism, see Rowbottom (2019a) and Rowbottom (2019b, chapter 3 & appendix). For different methodological theses pertaining to realism, see Hendry (1996) and Wray (2015).…”

Perceiving the weird and the wonderful. The mysterious metaphysics of phenomenology, art and science.

“…3 I here compare this approach with alternatives that posit there are objective, nonphenomenal components of reality, which is the standard view both of intuition and of conventional Science (e.g. Bhaskar, 1975;Chakravartty, 2007Chakravartty, , 2017aSankey, 2008;Agazzi, 2017;Ruttkamp-Bloem, 2017;Forbes, 2018;Saatsi, 2018;Rowbottom & Asay, 2019;Gonzalez, 2020). So I will assume all readers are familiar with this idea, and I will begin ( §2) with a brief review of the origins and development of continental philosophy's attitudes to Realism (for which I owe a debt mainly to Braver, 2013;.…”

Understanding quantum mechanics: a review and synthesis in precise language

“…-Another form is known as physical, mathematical or scientific realism. It assumes that physics can aspire to describe, or in fact deals with, independent reality directly [30, part II] [51,57].…”