Scientific Realism

21 important questions on Scientific Realism

Who made the distinction between internal and external questions?

Carnap

What is the main defense of Realism?

Inference to the only explanation: we grant the truth of a hypothesis since it is the only satisfactory explanation.

What is the miracle argument of Putman?

Realism is the only philosophy that doesn't make the succes of science a miracle.
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What are the 2 explanations of success according to J.J.C. Smart?

1. Instrumental succes theory is cosmic coincidence.
2. Theory depicts unobservable structures of the world faithfully --> best explanation.

What is the aim of a realist ontology of science according to McMullin?

The only way of explaining why models of science function so succesfully in the overcoming of anomalies is that they approximate in some way the structure of the object.

What is the most common contemporary defence of Scientific Realism?

Only if we take empirically succesful hypotheses to be true do we have an explanation for their empirical success, hence we believe succesful theories to be true.

Who belongs to Constructive Empricism?

van Fraassen

What is the Semantical Approach to Scientific theories?

To present a theory is to specify a family of structures, its models; and secondly, to specify certain parts of those models as candidates for the direct representation of observable phenomena.

How can empericism explain predictive succes?

By Darwinism: we end up with emperically succcesful theories that are also candidates for empirical adequacy.

What is the opposition of constructive empiricism?

Constructive Realism.

Who belongs to Constructive Realism?

Ronald Gierre.

What reasons are good reasons to believe unobservables exist according to Realists?

Epistemic reasons

Definition Belief in strict sense:

Belief for which one may ask reasons pertaining to the truth of the hypothesis.

Definition Belief in wide sense:

Include everything that may have caused one to belief the hypotheses.

Definition Belief Revision according to Empiricist:

Good reasons initial belief.

What is the opinion of Ian Hacking?

Possible to believe in existence of unobservable entities without insisting upon the truth of theory.

When do Realism and Instrumentalism clash?

When it comes to model explanation.

What is the motto of Instrumentalism?

If it works, it's good enough.

What does one need for prediction?

Stable correlations.

When is the theory empirically adequate?

If it has some model such that all appearances are isomorphic to empirical substructures of that model.

What reasons are good reasons to believe unobservables exist according to Empiricists?

Pragmatic reasons.

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