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Scientific realism is a view in the philosophy of science about the nature of scientific success, an answer to the question "what does the success of science involve?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities (objects, process and events) apparently talked about by scientific theories. Roughly put, scientific realism is the thesis that the unobservable things talked about by science are little different from ordinary observable things (such as tables and chairs). The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. ...
Main Features of Scientific Realism Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is important to note that one might be a scientific realist regarding some sciences while not being a realist regarding others. For example, one might hold very realist attitudes toward physics, chemistry and biology, while being less realist toward economics, psychology and sociology.
According to scientific realism, an ideal scientific theory has the following features:
- The claims the theory makes about unobservables are either true or false, and they are true or false depending on whether the entities talked about by the theory exist and are correctly described by the theory. This is the semantic commitment of scientific realism.
- The unobservables described by the scientific theory exist objectively and mind-independently. This is the metaphysical commitment of scientific realism.
- There are reasons to believe some significant portion of what the theory says about unobservables. This is the epistemological commitment.
Combining the first and the second claim entails that an ideal scientific theory says true things about genuinely existing unobservable entities. The third claim says that we have reasons to believe that the things said about unobservable entites are true. In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ...
Metaphysics (Greek words meta = after/beyond and physics = nature) is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of first principles and being (ontology). ...
Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. ...
Scientific realism usually holds that science makes progress, i.e. that scientific theories usually get successively better. For this reason, many people, scientific realist and otherwise, hold that realism should make sense of the progress of science in terms of theories being successively more like the ideal theory that scientific realists describe.
History of Scientific Realism Scientific realism is related to much older philosophical positions including rationalism and realism. However, it is a thesis about science developed in the twentieth century. Portraying scientific realism in terms of its ancient, medieval, and early modern cousins is at best misleading.
Scientific realism is developed largely as a reaction to Logical positivism. Logical positivism was the first philosophy of science in the twentieth century and the forerunnner of scientific realism, holding that a sharp distinction can be drawn between observational terms and theoretical terms, the latter capable of semantic analysis in observational and logical terms. Logical positivism (later referred to as logical empiricism, rational empiricism, and also neo-positivism) is a philosophy that originated in the Vienna Circle in the 1920s. ...
Logical positivism encountered difficulties with:
- the verification theory of meaning (for which see Hempel (1950))
- troubles with the analytic-synthetic distinction (for which see Quine (1950))
- the theory ladenness of observation (for which see Kuhn (1970) and Quine (1960))
- diffculties moving from the observationality of terms to observationality of sentences (for which see Putnam (1962))
- the vagueness of the observational-theoretical distinction (for which see Maxwell (1962))
These difficulties for logical positivism suggest, but do not entail, scientific realism, and lead to the development of realism as a philosophy of science. Carl Gustav Hempel (* January 8th, 1905 in Oranienburg, Germany † November 9th, 1997 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a philosopher of science and a student of logical positivism. ...
Cover of a biography of Thomas Kuhn. ...
W. V. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000) was one of the most influential American philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. ...
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is a key figure in the philosophy of mind during the 20th century. ...
The development of realism as an alternative to positivism also lead to arguments to support realism as a philosophy of science.
Realism became the dominant philosophy of science after positivism. Bas van Fraassen developed constructive empiricism as an alternative to realism. Responses to van Fraassen have sharped realist positions and lead to some revisions of scientific realism. Bas C. van Fraassen (born 1941) is a member of the Princeton University Philosophy department. ...
Arguments for and against Scientific Realism One of the main arguments for scientific realism centers on the observation that scientific knowledge is progressive in nature, and that it is able to predict phenomena successfully. Many realists feel the operational success of a theory lends credence to the idea that its more unobservable aspects exist, because they were how the theory reasoned its predictions. For example, a scientific realist would point out that science must derive some ontological support for atoms from the outstanding phenomenological success of all the theories using them.
On the other hand, Pessimistic induction, one of the main arguments against realism, argues that many previously successful scientific theories achieved their predictive success through the postulation of the existance of entities which later, even more successful, theories showed did not exist. It is then argued that we should expect for our theories to be replaced by newer ones which postulate a different set of unobservables. Pessimistic Induction is a name for an argument from the philosophy of science against the likelihood of scientific success. ...
Also against scientific realism social constructivists point out that scientific realism is unable to account for the rapid change that occurs in scientific knowledge during periods of revolution. Constructivists may also argue that the success of theories is only a part of the construction. Constructivism is a recent development in philosophy which criticizes essentialism, whether it is in the form of medieval realism, classical rationalism, or empiricism. ...
The other main argument against scientific realism, deriving from the underdetermination problem, is not so historically motivated as these others. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
See also Constructive empiricism, in philosophy, is a form of empiricism. ...
Confirmational holism is the claim that scientific theories are confirmed or disconfirmed as a whole. ...
In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data (for example, those of primary qualities) can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data (for example, those of secondary qualities and perceptual illusions) do not accurately...
In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that concepts and theories are merely useful instruments whose worth is measured not by whether the concepts and theories are true or false (or correctly depict reality), but how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena. ...
In the philosophy of perception naïve realism is the belief that the world is exactly as it appears. ...
This article primarily focuses on the general concepts of matter and existence. ...
International Relations Theory Realism Liberalism Idealism Neoconservatism Institutionalism Functionalism Marxism Critical theory Isolationism Neorealism or structural realism is a theory of international relations, outlined by Kenneth Waltz in his 1979 book, Theory of International Politics. ...
References - Hempel, Carl. (1950). "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance" in Boyd, Richard et al. eds. (1990). The Philosophy of Science Cambridge: MIT Press.
- Kukla, A. (2000). Social constructivism and the philosophy of science. London: Routledge.
- Kuhn, Thomas. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Edition Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Leplin, Jarrett. (1984). Scientific Realism. California: University of California Press.
- Leplin, Jarrett. (1997). A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Maxwell, Grover (1962). "The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entites" in Feigl and Maxwell Scientific Explantion, Space, and Time vol. 3, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 3-15.
- Putnam, Hilary. (1962). "What Theories are Not" in Ernst Nagel et al. (1962). Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science Stanford University Press.
- Quine, W.V.O. (1951). "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" in his (1953). From a Logical Point of View Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Quine, W.V.O. (1960). Word and Object Cambridge: MIT Press.
- Sankey, H. (2001). "Scientific Realism: An Elaboration and a Defense" retrieved from http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu
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