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Epistemic stances are collections of attitudes, values, aims, and policies relevant to assessing evidence, eventuating in belief or agnosticism regarding the output of scientific investigations. If, in some cases, conflicting stances promoting scientific realism and antirealism, respectively, are rationally permissible, this would seem to undermine the possibility of resolving certain debates between realists and antirealists. In this article I reply to two concerns about this conception of stances, to the effect that: (1) a stance underlying realism is, in fact, rationally obligatory for realists, given certain natural assumptions; and (2) this sort of permissivism would validate pseudoscience and science denialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the recent revival of entity realism. Having been started with the work of Ian Hacking, Nancy Cartwright, and Ronald Giere, the project of entity realism has recently been developed by Matthias Egg, Markus Eronen, and Bence Nanay. The paper opens a dialogue among these recent views on entity realism and integrates them into a more advanced view. The result is an epistemological criterion for reality: the property-tokens of a certain type may be taken as real insofar as only they can be materially inferred from the evidence obtained in a variety of independent ways of detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, I show that the semantic thesis of scientific realism may be relaxed significantly—to allow that some scientific discourse is not truth-valued—without making any concessions concerning the epistemic or methodological theses that lie at realism's core. Second, I illustrate how relaxing the semantic thesis allows realists to avoid positing abstract entities and to fend off objections to the "no miracles" argument from positions such as cognitive instrumentalism. Third, I argue that the semantic thesis of scientific realism should be relaxed because it is possible for scientific statements to be partially true, and hence approximately true, without being false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard proposals of scientific anti-realism assume that the methodology of a scientific research program can be endorsed without accepting its metaphysical commitments. I argue that the distinction between competence, the rules governing one's language faculty, and performance, or linguistic behavior, precludes this. Linguistic theories aim to describe competence, not performance, and so must be able to distinguish observations reflective of the former from those reflective of the latter. This classification of data makes sense only against the background of a psychologically realistic view of linguistic theory. So the very methodology of the science commits one to its realistic interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operations of deep networks are widely acknowledged to be inscrutable. The growing field of Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged in direct response to this problem. However, owing to the nature of the opacity in question, XAI has been forced to prioritise interpretability at the expense of completeness, and even realism, so that its explanations are frequently interpretable without being underpinned by more comprehensive explanations faithful to the way a network computes its predictions. While this has been taken to be a shortcoming of the field of XAI, I argue that it is broadly the right approach to the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the results of a study that investigated the views of researchers working in seven scientific disciplines and in history and philosophy of science in regard to four hypothesized dimensions of scientific realism. Among other things, we found (i) that natural scientists tended to express more strongly realist views than social scientists, (ii) that history and philosophy of science scholars tended to express more antirealist views than natural scientists, (iii) that van Fraassen's characterization of scientific realism failed to cluster with more standard characterizations, and (iv) that those who endorsed the pessimistic induction were no more or less likely to endorse antirealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article characterizes various species concepts in terms of set-theoretic models that license biological inferences and illustrates the logical connections among different species concepts. Species in this construal are abstract models, rather than biological or even tangible entities, and relate to individual organisms via representation, rather than the membership or mereological whole/part relationship. The proposal sheds new light on vexed issues of species and situates them within broader philosophical contexts of model selection, scientific representation, and scientific realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to orthodox representationalism, perceptual states have constitutive veridicality or accuracy conditions. In defense of this view, several philosophers—most notably Tyler Burge—employ a realist strategy that turns on the purported explanatory ineliminability of representational posits in perceptual science. I argue that Burge's version of the realist strategy fails as a defense of orthodox representationalism. However, it may vindicate a different kind of representationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent philosophy of measurement has emphasized the existence of both diachronic and synchronic "loops," or feedback processes, in the epistemic achievements of measurement. A widespread response has been to conclude that measurement outcomes do not convey interest-independent facts about the world and that only a coherentist epistemology of measurement is viable. In contrast, I argue that a form of measurement realism is consistent with these results. The insight is that antecedent structure in measuring spaces constrains our empirical procedures such that successful measurement conveys a limited but veridical knowledge of "fixed points," or modally stable, interest-independent features of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing a precise statement of their position has long been a central challenge facing scientific realists. This article draws some morals about how realism ought to be formulated from the renormalization group framework in high-energy physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One realist response to the pessimistic meta-induction distinguishes idle theoretical wheels from aspects of successful theories we can expect to persist and espouses realism about the latter. Implementing the response requires a strategy for identifying the distinguished aspects. The strategy I will call renormalization group realism has the virtue of directly engaging the gears of our best current physics—perturbative quantum field theories. I argue that the strategy, rather than disarming the skeptical possibilities evinced by the pessimistic meta-induction, forces them to retreat a level. I also suggest that those skeptical possibilities continue to carry force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hallmark of ecological research is dealing with complexity in the systems under investigation. One strategy is to diminish this complexity by constructing models and theories that are general. Alternatively, ecologists can constrain the scope of their generalizations to particular phenomena or types of systems. However, research employing the second strategy is often met with scathing criticism. I offer a theoretical argument in support of moderate generalizations in ecological research, based on the notions of interdependence and causal heterogeneity and their effect on the trade-off between generality and realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robustness arguments hold that hypotheses are more likely to be true when they are confirmed by diverse kinds of evidence. Robustness arguments require the confirming evidence to be independent. We identify two kinds of independence appealed to in robustness arguments: ontic independence (OI)--when the multiple lines of evidence depend on different materials, assumptions, or theories--and probabilistic independence. Many assume that OI is sufficient for a robustness argument to be warranted. However, we argue that, as typically construed, OI is not a sufficient independence condition for warranting robustness arguments. We show that OI evidence can collectively confirm a hypothesis to a lower degree than individual lines of evidence, contrary to the standard assumption undergirding usual robustness arguments. We employ Bayesian networks to represent the ideal empirical scenario for a robustness argument and a variety of ways in which empirical scenarios can fall short of this ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine the perceptual metaphor at the heart of perspectivism, discussing three elements: partiality, interestedness, and interaction. I argue that perspectivists should drop the visual metaphor in favor of a haptic one. Because the sense of touch requires contact and purposeful exploration on the part of the perceiver, it is obvious that with touch one apprehends an extradermal reality in virtue of and not in spite of its interactive and interested nature. By analogy, perspectivists should investigate the thesis that scientific representations inform us about the natural world in virtue of their interactive and interested qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scientific realists suggest that scientific communities have improved in their ability to discover alternative theoretical possibilities and that the problem of unconceived alternatives therefore poses a less significant threat to contemporary scientific communities than it did to their historical predecessors. I first argue that the most profound and fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have actually increased rather than decreased our vulnerability to the problem. I then argue that whether we are troubled by even the prospect of increasing theoretical conservatism in science should depend on the position we occupy in the ongoing debate concerning scientific realism itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A. W. F. Edwards's 2003 response to Lewontin's 1972 paper, and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating the relevance of these scientific discussions for political positions and a post-racial future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selective scientific realists disagree on which theoretical posits should be regarded as essential to the empirical success of a scientific theory. A satisfactory account of essentialness will show that the (approximate) truth of the selected posits adequately explains the success of the theory. Therefore, (a) the essential elements must be discernible prospectively; (b) there cannot be a priori criteria regarding which type of posit is essential; and (c) the overall success of a theory, or 'cluster' of propositions, not only individual derivations, should be explicable. Given these desiderata, I propose a "unification criterion" for identifying essential elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present a novel approach to the scholarly debate that has arisen with respect to the philosophical import one should infer from scientific accounts of phase transitions by appealing to a distinction between representation understood as denotation, and faithful representation understood as a type of guide to ontology. It is argued that the entire debate is misguided, for it stems from a pseudo-paradox that does not license the type of claims made by scholars and that what is really interesting about phase transitions is the manner by which they force us to rethink issues regarding scientific representation, idealizations, and realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years--and with some energy since Laudan's "Confutation of Convergent Realism" (1981)--the scientific realist has sought to accommodate examples of false- yet-successful theories in the history of science. One of the most prominent strategies is to identify 'success fueling' components of false theories that themselves are at least approximately true (judging by our current understanding). In this article I develop both sides of the debate, introducing new challenges from the history of science as well as suggesting adjustments to the divide et impera realist strategy. A new 'recipe' for the prospective identi?cation of (at least some) working/idle posits is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some philosophers of science--myself included--appeal to fiction as an interpretation of the practice of modeling. This raises the specter of an incompatibility with realism, since fiction making is essentially nontruth regulated. I argue that the prima facie conflict can be resolved in two ways, each involving a distinct notion of fiction and a corresponding formulation of realism. The main goal of the essay is to describe these two packages. I comment also on how to choose between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing recognition that fictions have a number of legitimate functions in science, even when it comes to scientific explanation. However, the question then arises, what distinguishes an explanatory fiction from a nonexplanatory one? Here I examine two cases--one in which there is a consensus in the scientific community that the fiction is explanatory and another in which the fiction is not explanatory. I shall show how my account of "model explanations" is able to explain this asymmetry, and argue that realism--of a more subtle form--does have a role in distinguishing explanatory from nonexplanatory fictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is proposed that we use the term "approximation" for inexact description of a target system and "idealization" for another system whose properties also provide an inexact description of the target system. Since systems generated by a limiting process can often have quite unexpected--even inconsistent--properties, familiar limit processes used in statistical physics can fail to provide idealizations but merely provide approximations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the semantic view of scientific theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view--if taken literally--leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical relations, such as embeddability of one theory into another. The untenability of the semantic view--as currently formulated--threatens to undermine scientific structuralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his award-winning contribution to the biannual PSA conference at Pittsburgh in 2008, Christian Wüthrich mounted an argument against structuralism about spacetime in the context of the general theory of relativity (GTR), to the effect that structuralists cannot discern space-time points: an "abysmal embarrassment" for the structuralist, Wüthrich judged. Wüthrich's characterization of spacetime structuralism is however incorrect. We demonstrate how, on the basis of a correct characterization of space-time structuralism, it is possible to discern space-time points in the GTR structures under consideration. Thus Wüthrich's argument crumbles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the optical ether as a case study, this article advances four lines of consideration to show why synchronic versions of the divide et impera strategy of scientific realism are unlikely to work. The considerations draw from (a) the nineteenth-century theories of light, (b) the rise of surprising implication as an epistemic value from the time of Fresnel on, (c) assessments of the ether in end-of-century reports around 1900, and (d) the roots of ether theorizing in now superseded metaphysical assumptions. The typicality of the case and its impact on diachronic versions of the strategy are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific realists endeavor to secure inferences from empirical success to approximate truth by arguing that, despite the demise of empirically successful theories, the parts of those theories responsible for their success do, in fact, survive theory change. If, as some antirealists have recently suggested, successful theory parts are only identifiable in retrospect, namely, as those that have survived, then the realist approach is trivialized, for now success and survival are guaranteed to coincide. The primary aim of this article is to counter this argument by identifying successful theory parts independently from their survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microphysical realism is the position that the only real entities and properties are found at the most fundamental level of nature. In this article, I challenge microphysical realism concerning properties and natural kinds. One argument for microphysical realism about entities, the "nothing-but argument," does not apply to properties and kinds. Another argument, the "causal exclusion argument," cannot be sustained in light of modern physics. Moreover, this argument leads to an objection against microphysical realism, based on the "illusoriness of macroproperties." Another objection is based on the possibility that there is no fundamental level but a "bottomless pit." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I argue that uneliminated idealizations pose a serious problem for scientific realism. I consider one method for "de-idealizing" models--robustness analysis. However, I argue that unless idealizations are eliminated from an idealized theory and robustness analysis need not do that, scientists are not justified in believing that the theory is true. I consider one example of modeling from the biological sciences that exemplifies the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific realism is the position that success of a scientific theory licenses an inference to its approximate truth. The argument from pessimistic metainduction maintains that this inference is undermined due to the existence of theories from the history of science that were successful but false. I aim to counter pessimistic metainduction and defend scientific realism. To do this, I adopt a notion of success that admits of degrees and show that our current best theories enjoy far higher degrees of success than any of the successful but refuted theories of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist tradition insofar as the distinction between unobservable and observable is taken to have significance with respect to meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pessimistic Induction (PI) states: most past scientific theories were radically mistaken; therefore, current theories are probably similarly mistaken. But mistaken in what way? On the usual understanding, such past theories are false. However, on widely held views about reference and presupposition, many theoretical claims of previous scientific theories are neither true nor false. And if substantial portions of past theories are truth-valueless, then the PI leads to semantic antirealism. But most current philosophers of science reject semantic antirealism. So PI proponents face a difficult choice: accept either semantic antirealism or an unorthodox position on reference and pre-supposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural realism first emerged as an epistemological thesis aimed to avoid the so-called pessimistic metainduction on the history of science. Some authors, however, have suggested that the preservation of structure across theory change is best explained by endorsing the metaphysical thesis that structure is all there is. Although the possibility of this latter, 'ontic' form of structural realism has been extensively debated, not much has been said concerning its justification. In this article, I distinguish between two arguments in favor of ontic structural realism that can be reconstructed from the literature and find both of them wanting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the evolution of Feigl's attempt at establishing a stable form of scientific realism. I will argue that Feigl's work in that area should be appreciated for two reasons: (1) it represents a telling case against the view of there being an unbridgeable 'analytic-continental divide' in the context of twentieth-century philosophy; (2) it contradicts the idea that scientific realism is at odds with logical empiricism. It will be shown that Feigl developed his scientific realist position from within the logical empiricists' Vienna Circle. This, in turn, necessitates a fresh approach toward the contemporary scientific realism debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stars are remarkably absent from reflections on natural kinds and classifications, with gold, tiger, jade, and water getting all the philosophical attention. It is a pity, for interesting philosophical lessons can be drawn from stellar taxonomy as regards two central debates about natural kinds, to wit, the monism/pluralism debate and the realism/antirealism debate. I show in particular that stellar kinds will not please the essentialist monist, nor will it please the pluralist embracing promiscuous realism à la Dupré. I conclude on a more general note by questioning the relationship between taxonomic scientific practice and philosophical doctrines of natural kinds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the prospects of nominalistic scientific realism (NSR) and show that it fails on many counts. In section 2, I discuss what is required for NSR to get off the ground. In section 3, I question the idea that theories have well-defined nominalistic content and the idea that causal activity is a necessary condition for commitment to the reality of an entity. In section 4, I challenge the notion of nominalistic adequacy of theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking Bogen and Woodward's discussion of data and phenomena as his starting point, McAilister presents a challenge to scientific realism. I discuss this challenge and offer a suggestion for how the scientific realist could respond to both its epistemic and ontological aspects. In so doing, I urge that the scientific realist should not reject ontological pluralism from the start, but should seek to explore versions of scientific realism that leave open the possibility of certain kinds of pluralist ontology. I investigate the available options (in terms of foundationalism, reductionism, and universalism) and use a law-constitutive approach to offer a strategy for the scientific realist who is open-minded about ontological pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that a certain type of naturalist should not accept a prominent version of the no-miracles argument (NMA). First, scientists (usually) do not accept explanations whose explanans-statements neither generate novel predictions nor unify apparently disparate established claims. Second, scientific realism (as it appears in the NMA) is an explanans that makes no new predictions and fails to unify disparate established claims. Third, many proponents of the NMA explicitly adopt a naturalism that forbids philosophy of science from using any methods not employed by science itself. Therefore, such naturalistic philosophers of science should not accept the version of scientific realism that appears in the NMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural realist interpretations of generally relativistic spacetimes have recently come to enjoy a remarkable degree of popularity among philosophers. I present a challenge to these structuralist interpretations that arises from considering cosmological models in general relativity. As a consequence of their high degree of spacetime symmetry, these models resist a structuralist interpretation. I then evaluate the various strategies available to the structuralist to react to this challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After sorting different structuralist claims, I argue that structural realist ideas are instantiated in the social sciences, providing both clarification of social science research and support for some components of structural realism. My main focus is on three distinct ways that the social sciences can be about structural relations--exemplified by claims about social structure, reduced form structures in causal modeling, and equilibrium explanations--and on the implication of structuralist ideas for thinking about issues concerning causal explanation and nonreductive pictures of the unity of the science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primacy of physics generates a philosophical problem that the naturalist must solve in order to be entitled to an egalitarian acceptance of the ontological commitments he or she inherits from the special sciences and fundamental physics. The problem is the generalized causal exclusion argument. If there is no genuine causation in the domains of the special sciences but only in fundamental physics then there are grounds for doubting the existence of macroscopic objects and properties, or at least the concreteness of them. The aim of this paper is to show that the causal exclusion problem derives its force from a false dichotomy between Humeanism about causation and a notion of productive or generative causation based on a defunct model of the physical world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ontic structural realism (OSR) is crucially motivated by empirical discoveries of fundamental physics. To this extent its potential to furnish a general metaphysics for science may appear limited. However, OSR also provides a good account of the progress that has been achieved over the decades in a formalized special science, economics. Furthermore, this has a basis in the ontology presupposed by economic theory, and is not just an artifact of formalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relation between coherence and truth? This paper rejects numerous answers to this question, including the following: truth is coherence; coherence is irrelevant to truth; coherence always leads to truth; coherence leads to probability, which leads to truth. I will argue that coherence of the right kind leads to at least approximate truth. The right kind is explanatory coherence, where explanation consists in describing mechanisms. We can judge that a scientific theory is progressively approximating the truth if it is increasing its explanatory coherence in two key respects: broadening by explaining more phenomena and deepening by investigating layers of mechanisms. I sketch an explanation of why deepening is a good epistemic strategy and discuss the prospect of deepening knowledge in the social sciences and everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a stronger version of 'inference-to-the-best explanation' scientific realism. I argue against three standard assumptions of current realists: (1) realism is confirmed if it provides the best explanation of theories' predictive success; (2) the realist claim that successful theories are always approximately true provides the best explanation of their success; and (3) realists are committed to giving the same sort of truth-based explanation of superseded theories' success that they give to explain our best current theories' success. On the positive side, I argue that (1) the confirmation of realism requires explaining theories' explanatory success, not just their predictive success; (2) in turn this task requires a richer realist model of explanation that brings into the explanans both (a) successful theories' epistemic virtues (e.g., unification and simplicity) and (b) the standards governing these virtues, as well as truth; (3) this richer realist model is further confirmed because it can better explain the success of theories in gaining wide acceptance among scientists; and (4) the model is further supported because it is superior to 'preservative realism' in providing a plausible rebuttal of the pessimistic meta-induction from the many past successful-but-false theories to the likelihood that our best current theories are likewise false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]