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Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-11
Total Pages: 237
ISBN-13: 1108415210
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.
Author: Seungbae Park
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2021-12-02
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 3030878139
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book provides philosophers of science with new theoretical resources for making their own contributions to the scientific realism debate. Readers will encounter old and new arguments for and against scientific realism. They will also be given useful tips for how to provide influential formulations of scientific realism and antirealism. Finally, they will see how scientific realism relates to scientific progress, scientific understanding, mathematical realism, and scientific practice.
Author: N. Rescher
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 190
ISBN-13: 9400939051
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The increasingly lively controversy over scientific realism has become one of the principal themes of recent philosophy. 1 In watching this controversy unfold in the rather technical way currently in vogue, it has seemed to me that it would be useful to view these contemporary disputes against the background of such older epistemological issues as fallibilism, scepticism, relativism, and the traditional realism/idealism debate. This, then, is the object of the present book, which will recon sider the newer concerns about scientific realism in the context of these older philosophical themes. Historically, realism concerns itself with the real existence of things that do not "meet the eye" - with suprasensible entities that lie beyond the reach of human perception. In medieval times, discussions about realism focused upon universals. Recognizing that there are physical objects such as cats and triangular objects and red tomatoes, the medievels debated whether such "abstract objects" as cathood and triangularity and redness also exist by way of having a reality indepen dent of the concretely real things that exhibit them. Three fundamen tally different positions were defended: (1) Nominalism. Abstracta have no independent existence as such: they only "exist" in and through the objects that exhibit them. Only particulars (individual substances) exist. Abstract "objects" are existents in name only, mere thought fictions by whose means we address concrete particular things. (2) Realism. Abstracta have an independent existence as such.
Author: Stathis Psillos
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2005-08-02
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 1134619820
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track. This book argues that the history of science does not undermine this notion, suggesting it as the best philosophical account of science.
Author: Anjan Chakravartty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2007-10-18
Total Pages: 235
ISBN-13: 1139468391
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately true descriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world. Debates between realists and their critics are at the very heart of the philosophy of science. Anjan Chakravartty traces the contemporary evolution of realism by examining the most promising strategies adopted by its proponents in response to the forceful challenges of antirealist sceptics, resulting in a positive proposal for scientific realism today. He examines the core principles of the realist position, and sheds light on topics including the varieties of metaphysical commitment required, and the nature of the conflict between realism and its empiricist rivals. By illuminating the connections between realist interpretations of scientific knowledge and the metaphysical foundations supporting them, his book offers a compelling vision of how realism can provide an internally consistent and coherent account of scientific knowledge.
Author: Evandro Agazzi
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2017-03-08
Total Pages: 405
ISBN-13: 3319516086
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book offers a comprehensive update on the scientific realism debate, enabling readers to gain a novel appreciation of the role of objectivity and truth in science and to understand fully the various ways in which antirealist conceptions have been subjected to challenge over recent decades. Authoritative representatives of different philosophical traditions explain their perspectives on the meaning and validity of scientific realism and describe the strategies being adopted to counter persisting antirealist positions. The coverage extends beyond the usual discussion of realism within the context of the natural sciences, and especially physics, to encompass also its applicability in mathematics, logic, and the human sciences. The book will appeal to all with an interest in the recent realist epistemologies of science, the nature of current philosophical debate, and the ongoing rehabilitation of truth as the legitimate goal of scientific research.
Author: Rom Harré
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 1986-01
Total Pages: 375
ISBN-13: 9780631125921
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Stathis Psillos
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2005-08-02
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 1134619812
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it . In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism. Scientific Realism explains that the history of science does not undermine the arguments for scientific realism, but instead makes it reasonable to accept scientific realism as the best philosophical account of science, its empirical success, its progress and its practice. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the state of modern science and why scientific realism is plausible, should read this book.
Author: Ilkka Niiniluoto
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 1999-12-09
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13: 0191519405
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Ilkka Niiniluoto comes to the rescue of scientific realism, showing that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Philosophical realism holds that the aim of a particular discourse is to make true statements about its subject-matter. Niiniluoto surveys the different varieties of realism in ontology, semantics, epistemology, theory construction, and methodology. He then sets out his own original version, and defends it against competing theories in the philosophy of science. Niiniluoto's critical scientific realism is founded upon the notion of truth as correspondence between language and reality, and characterizes scientific progress in terms of increasing truthlikeness. This makes it possible not only to take seriously, but also to make precise, the troublesome idea that scientific theories typically are false but nevertheless close to the truth.
Author: Frederick Suppe
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 508
ISBN-13: 9780252016059
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"An authoritative account of the semantic conception of theories by one of its chief developers. Suppe has always seen the semantic conception as providing a way of moving beyond empiricist philosophies of science. This book provides the definitive account of his views not only on the issue of realism, but also on a variety of other issues central to the philosophy of science." -- Ronald N. Giere, author of Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach
