What Is Scientific Realism?

  • Anjan Chakravartty University of Miami, USA
  • Bas C. van Fraassen San Francisco State University, USA
  • Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil
  • Félix Flores Pinheiro Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5183804
Keywords: Beliefs, Rationality, Scientific realism

Abstract

Decades of debate about scientific realism notwithstanding, we find ourselves bemused by what different philosophers appear to think it is, exactly. Does it require any sort of belief in relation to scientific theories and, if so, what sort? Is it rather typified by a certain understanding of the rationality of such beliefs? In the following dialogue we explore these questions in hopes of clarifying some convictions about what scientific realism is, and what it could or should be. En route, we encounter some profoundly divergent conceptions of the nature of science and of philosophy.

Author Biographies

Anjan Chakravartty, University of Miami, USA

Anjan Chakravartty is the Appignani Foundation Professor at the University of Miami, USA. PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is author of Scientific Ontology: Integrating Naturalized Metaphysics and Voluntarist Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2017) or A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Bas C. van Fraassen, San Francisco State University, USA

Bas c. van Fraassen is McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, Emeritus, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, San Francisco State University. PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is author of The Scientific Image (Oxford University Press, 1980), Laws and Symmetry (Oxford University Press, 1989), The Empirical Stance (Yale University Press, 2002) or Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2008).

References

Chakravartty, A. (2007). A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Boyd, R. N. (1983). «On the Current Status of the Issue of Scientific Realism». Erkenntnis, 19: pp. 45 – 90. DOI: 10.1007/BF00174775.

Devitt, M. (1991). Realism and Truth. Oxford, Blackwell.

Kukla, A. (1998). Studies in Scientific Realism. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Niiniluoto, I. (1999). Critical Scientific Realism. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Papineau, D. (ed.). (1996). The Philosophy of Science. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Psillos, S. (1999). Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London, Routledge.

Smart, J. J. C. (1963). Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

van Fraassen, B. C. (1980). The Scientific Image. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Worrall, J. (2007). «Miracles and Models: Why Reports of the Death of Structural Realism May Be Exaggerated». Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 87: pp. 125 – 154. DOI: 10.1017/S1358246107000173.
Published
2021-06-30
How to Cite
[1]
Chakravartty, A., van Fraassen, B.C., Arroyo, R. and Pinheiro, F. 2021. What Is Scientific Realism?. Disputatio. 10, 17 (Jun. 2021), 271-288. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5183804.
Issue
Vol. 10 No. 17 (2021)
Section
Discussions

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