The Historical Challenge to Realism and Essential Deployment

Alai, Mario

doi:10.1093/oso/9780190946814.003.0009

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In this regard, the DNMA is unlike seminal presentations of the TNMA, in which the TNMA aimed to vindicate, wholesale, the approximate truth of our best scientific theories (Putnam, 1975;Boyd, 1984). The DNMA's more piecemeal approach to theory confirmation mirrors the core innovation of deployment realism, a version of the TNMA developed by Psillos (1994Psillos ( , 1999, Kitcher (1993), Musgrave (1988Musgrave ( , 2006Musgrave ( -2007, and in particular, Alai (2014aAlai ( , 2014bAlai ( , 2017Alai ( , 2018Alai ( , 2021.…”

Section: Four Key Features Of the Dnmamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…20 Deployment realism (sometimes called selective realism) is perhaps the most subtle and promising member of the realist family. The view has been developed by a number of high-profile defenders and carefully engages with the history of science (Kitcher, 1993;Psillos, 1999;Musgrave, 2006Musgrave, -2007Alai 2014aAlai , 2014bAlai , 2014cAlai , 2014dAlai , 2018Alai , 2021.…”

Section: Deployment Realism and The Imamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For an interesting series of hard cases for deployment realism or replies attempting accommodation, seeLaudan (1981),Psillos (1994Psillos ( , 2022,Lyons (2002Lyons ( , 2003,Chang (2003),Doppelt (2005),Alai (2014dAlai ( , 2017Alai ( , 2018Alai ( , 2021,Vickers (2017) Boge (2021), andTulodziecki (2021). For more theoretical criticisms, seeStanford (2006),Lyons (2006),Peters (2014).22 Whether this entails that the DNMA uses deployment realism or that the DNMA uses a parallel but different scope-restricting move does not matter to the authors.…”

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confidence: 99%

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A deductive variation on the no miracles argument

Golemon

Graber²

2023

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The traditional No-Miracles Argument (TNMA) asserts that the novel predictive success of science would be a miracle, and thus too implausible to believe, if successful theories were not at least approximately true. The TNMA has come under fire in multiple ways, challenging each of its premises and its general argumentative structure. While the TNMA relies on explaining novel predictive success via the truth of the theories, we put forth a deductive version of the No-Miracles argument (DNMA) that avoids inference to the best explanation entirely. Instead, a relatively simple empirical framework and a probabilistic analysis can accomplish the ambitious goals of the TNMA while entirely sidestepping its problems. This close-but-distinct argument has many independent strengths and comparatively few weaknesses. Indeed, objections tailored specifically to the DNMA reveal surprising insights into how exactly NMAs are neither circular nor question-begging, as has been widely speculated.

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Section: Four Key Features Of the Dnmamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Deployment Realism and The Imamentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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A deductive variation on the no miracles argument

Golemon

Graber²

2023

Synthese

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“…The question arises then -can the overlap strategy replace the notion of working posits as a master criterion for when we should make positive realist commitments? A number of issues arise if we simply believe the common claims made by the known theories which are compatible with 21 Variations of this approach are developed by Kitcher (1993), Psillos (1999), Vickers (2017), andAlai (2021), among many others. 22 One might object here that removing the spontaneous collapse mechanism from GRW quantum mechanics simply leaves you with Everett quantum mechanics so the derivation need not be ruined.…”

Section: Unconceived Alternatives?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is another possibility: it may be that by adopting a more nuanced version of the working posits strategy one can dissolve the apparent conflict with the overlap strategy and rescue the explanatory component of scientific realism in the process. 24 Rather than simply looking for assumptions that cannot be removed from the derivations of empirical results, more sophisticated implementations of the working posits approach require us to check whether it is possible to replace the assumptions of a given derivation with more abstract assumptions that are also capable of deriving the same result (Vickers 2017;Alai 2021). The thought is that the abstract descriptive claims we identified as common to our three ontic interpretations in section 3 might equivalently be obtained by an abstraction procedure of this kind.…”

Section: Explanatory Deficit?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: An Overlap Strategy

Fraser¹,

Vickers²

2022

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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The existence of multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics appears to pose a serious challenge for knowledge claims about the quantum domain. Hoefer (2020) argues that a scientific realist epistemology must be abandoned in this context, while Callender (2020) argues that the realist's only option is to break the underdetermination between rival interpretations by appealing to extraempirical virtues. We develop a different response to the quantum underdetermination problem based on identifying statements about the unobservable which all the major ontic interpretations of quantum mechanics agree on. It is commonly believed that Everettian, Bohmian and GRW quantum mechanics share nothing but empirical content. We argue that, while they say very different things about the fundamental nature of quantum systems, they can be understood as agreeing on a plethora of more abstract theoretical claims. In our view, focusing on this descriptive overlap represents the most promising strategy for defending knowledge claims in the quantum domain. We close by considering how this overlap strategy relates to working posits formulations of scientific realism.

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Scientific Realism and Further Underdetermination Challenges

Alai

2021

Axiomathes

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In an earlier article on this journal I argued that the problem of empirical underdetermination can for the largest part be solved by theoretical virtues, and for the remaining part it can be tolerated. Here I confront two further challenges to scientific realism based on underdetermination. First, there are four classes of theories which may seem to be underdetermined even by theoretical virtues. Concerning them I argue that (i) theories produced by trivial permutations and (ii) “equivalent descriptions” are compatible with the truth of standard theories; instead (iii) “as if” versions of standard theories are much worse from the point of view of theoretical virtues; finally (iv) mathematically intertranslatable theories either may become empirically decidable in the future, or can be discriminated by theoretical virtues, or realists may simply plead ignorance about their claims. Secondly, I consider Stanford’s underdetermination with respect unconceived alternatives, arguing that it essentially relies on the pessimistic meta-induction from the falsity of all past theories. Therefore, it can be resisted by (a) considering the radical advancement of present with respect to past science, and (b) arguing with selective realism that past successful theories, even if false, always included some true components.

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The Historical Challenge to Realism and Essential Deployment

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

A deductive variation on the no miracles argument

A deductive variation on the no miracles argument

Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: An Overlap Strategy

Scientific Realism and Further Underdetermination Challenges

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