What Can the Discovery of Boron Tell Us About the Scientific Realism Debate?

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-55
Author(s):  
Jonathon Hricko
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Predictive Success ◽  
Selective Realism ◽  
Realism Debate

This chapter examines the work in chemistry that led to the discovery of boron and explores the implications of this episode for the scientific realism debate. This episode begins with Lavoisier’s oxygen theory of acidity and his prediction that boracic acid contains oxygen and a hypothetical, combustible substance that he called the boracic radical. The episode culminates in the work of Davy, Gay-Lussac, and Thénard, who used potassium to extract oxygen from boracic acid and thereby discovered boron. This chapter shows that Lavoisier’s theory of acidity, which was not even approximately true, exhibited novel predictive success. Selective realists attempt to accommodate such false-but-successful theories by showing that their success is due to the fact that they have approximately true parts. However, this chapter argues that this episode poses a strong challenge to selective realism because the parts of Lavoisier’s theory that are responsible for its success are not even approximately true.

scholarly journals Scientific Ontology: Fact or Stance?

Dialogue ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis Psillos
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Realism Debate ◽  
Scientific Ontology

ABSTRACTIn this paper, the key tenets of Anjan Chakravartty's book Scientific Ontology are critically discussed. After a brief presentation of the project of stance-based ontology (Section 2), I move on to criticize Chakravartty's account of metaphysical inference (Sections 2 and 3). Then, in Section 4, I take issue with Chakravartty's view that fundamental debates in metaphysics inevitably lead to irresolvable disagreement, while in Section 5, the concept of epistemic stance is scrutinized, noting that there are problems in Chakravartty's account of the rationality of stance-choice. Finally, Section 6 is about the implications of stance-based ontology for the scientific realism debate.

scholarly journals Editor's Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Curtis Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Realism Debate

The debate over scientific realism, simply put, is a debate over what we can and should believe about reality once we've critically assessed all the available arguments and empirical evidence. Thinking earnestly about the merits of scientific realism as a philosophical thesis requires navigating contentious historiographical issues, being familiar with the technical details of various scientific theories, and addressing disparate philosophical problems spanning aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, and beyond. This issue of Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science aims to make participating in the scientific realism debate easier for both newcomers and veterans, collecting over twenty invited and peer-reviewed papers under the title "The Future of the Scientific Realism Debate: Contemporary Issues Concerning Scientific Realism."

An introduction to the scientific realism debate

Metascience ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-222
Author(s):  
Leah Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Realism Debate

scholarly journals El contenido empírico del realismo científico

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriano Iranzo
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Testable Hypothesis ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Observational Consequence ◽  
Predictive Success ◽  
Scientific Hypothesis ◽  
Empirical Hypothesis

RESUMENUna forma común de entender el realismo científico (RC) en las últimas décadas ha sido plantearlo como una inferencia explicativa: RC es la mejor explicación del éxito predictivo-instrumental de la ciencia. Algunos de sus partidarios mantienen, además que es una hipótesis empíricamente constrastable. Intentaré argumentar, que, entendido así, RC no es empíricamente contrastable. En primer lugar, aunque el éxito predictivo-instrumental initerrumpido de una teoría T es una consecuencia observacional de la verdad de T, este hecho no hecho no constituye una evidencia empírica diferente del propio "explanandum". En segundo lugar, elaorar un registro histórico del éxito -no sólo empírico, sino teórico- obtenido mediante la postulación de entidades por consideraciones explicativas, confirmaría como mucho, y eso suponiendo que fuera posible, una cocincidencia entre una metodología determinada y unos resultados, pero no daría cuenta del vínculo explicativo entre éxito predictivo instrumental por un lado, y verdad y existencia, por otro. Por consiguiente, RC no es una hipótesis empírica en un sentido genuino; a fortiori, tampoco es una hipótesis científica. Esta conclusión, no obstante, no cierra el camino a un realismo científico de carácter local.PALABRAS CLAVEREALISMO CIENTÍFICO, OBSERVACIÓN, TEORÍA, INFERENCIA A LA MEJOR EXPLICACIÓNABSTRACTA common way of understanding scientific realism (SR) during the latest decades says that SR is the best explanation of the predictive success enjoyed by scientific theories. Some os this advocates claim, aslo, that SR is an empirically testable hypothesis. I will try to argue that, as an explanation of predictive sucess, SR is not empirically testable. Firstly, even though the uninterrupted preditive success of T is an observational consequence of T´s truth, this fact is not a kind of evidence distinguishable from the very explanandum. Secondly, a historical record of success obtained by postulating theoretical emities would confirm, at most, a correlation between some methodological norms and some particular results. But confirming such correlation is not the same as vindicating an explanotory link between truth and existence (the explanans), and predictive success (the explanandum). In sum, SR is not a genuine empirical hypothesis; a fortiori, it is neither a scientific hypothesis. Anyway, this conclusion does not forbid some kind of "local" scientific realism.KEYWORDSSCIENTIFIC REALISM, OBSERVATION, THEORY, INFERENCE TO THE BEST EXPLANATION

scholarly journals Deconstructing the Phantom: Duhem and the Scientific Realism Debate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Kotowski ◽  
Krzysztof Szlachcic
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Realism Debate

AbstractFor many decades, Duhem has been considered a paradigmatic instrumentalist, and while some commentators have argued against classifying him in this way, it still seems prevalent as an interpretation of his philosophy of science. Yet such a construal bears scant resemblance to the views presented in his own works—so little, indeed, that it might be said to constitute no more than a mere phantom with respect to his actual thought. In this article, we aim to deconstruct this phantom, tracing the sources of the misconceptions surrounding his ideas and pinpointing the sources and/or causes of its proliferation. We subsequently point out and discuss those elements of his philosophy that, taken together, support the view of him as a scientific realist of a sophisticated kind. Finally, we defend our own interpretation of his thought against suggestions to the effect that it is oriented towards neither instrumentalism nor scientific realism.

scholarly journals Scientific Realism and Further Underdetermination Challenges

Axiomathes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Alai
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Virtues ◽  
Unconceived Alternatives ◽  
The Future ◽  
Selective Realism ◽  
As If

AbstractIn 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.

Hacking's Experimental Realism

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Resnik
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Scientific Representation ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Scientific Inference ◽  
The World ◽  
Experimental Realism ◽  
Realism Debate

Traditional debates about scientific realism tend to focus on issues concerning scientific representation (broadly speaking) and de-emphasize issues concerning scientific intervention. Questions about the relation between theories and the world, the nature of scientific inference, and the structure of scientific explanations have occupied a central place in the realism debate, while questions about experimentation and technology have not. Ian Hacking's experimental realism attempts to reverse this trend by shifting the defense of realism away from representation to intervention. Experimental realism, according to Hacking, does not require us to believe that our theories are true (or approximately true), nor does its defense depend on inference to the best explanation. For Hacking, the strongest proof for realism is that we can manipulate objects: 'So far as I'm concerned, if you can spray them, then they are real' (ibid., 23).

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