Hacking-on-scientific-realism no-miracles-argument VS pessimistic-meta-induction scientific-anti-realism
A scientific realist thinks it does make sense to say that science aims at describing the real structure of the world we live in.
Common-sense realism = We all inhabit a common reality, which has a structure that exists independently of what people think and say about it, except insofar as reality is comprised of, or is causally affected by, thoughts, theories, and other symbols - Theory and Reality, p. 174
^0b2935 In a minimal way, being a common-sense realist means that before us, there was a world and there will be a world after us.
How should we define scientific realism?
One approach: scientific realism asserts that the world really is the way our best-established theories describe it.
The problem with this definition is that this makes scientific realism dependent on the accuracy of our current scientific theories. If our current theories turn out to be wrong, scientific realism will be false too. Michael Devitt (1997) defends this position that as long as we do not commit to realism about speculative scientific ideas, there is no worry. However, there is always the genuine possibility that even our well-established parts of science might be wrong. So, Godfrey-Smith (Theory and Reality) suggests to consider a scientific realist position that does not depend on the reliability of our current theories.
Van-Fraassen-constructive-empiricism definition of scientific realism:
Link to original“Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. This is the correct statement of scientific realism”
Godfrey-Smith’s on Scientific Realism
Godfrey-Smith’s solution is to modify common-sense realism to make it more responsive to science, in order to allow for the possibility of unexpected uncommon relations between thought and reality.
Common-sense Realism Naturalized: We all inhabit a common reality, which has a structure that exists independently of what people think and say about it, except insofar as reality is comprised of thoughts, theories, and other symbols, and except insofar as reality is dependent on thoughts, theories, and other symbols in ways that might be uncovered by science.
Hence, Godfrey-Smith gives the following statement of scientific realism =
- common sense realism naturalized = there is a real world out there with a structure, and it’s not just a projection of our minds — but we hold that loosely, deferring to science on the details of how mind and reality relate.
- One actual and reasonable aim of science is to give us accurate descriptions (and other representations) of what reality is like. This project includes giving us accurate representations of aspects of reality that are unobservable
- actual = this is real goal that practicing scientists actually pursue
- reasonable = success is achievable often enough that pursuing accuracy is a rational goal
what does it mean by “unobservable” =
- Jupiter is observable, electrons is unobservable
“X is observable to us if there are circumstances which are such that if X is present to us under those circumstances then we observe it (with our unaided senses)” (p.16, Fraassen in The Scientific Image)
Godfrey-Smith believes that his statement of scientific realism intends to capture both the optimistic and pessimistic version of scientific realism. But since it claims that it is a reasonable aim of science to give an accurate description of reality, extreme pessimism is not compatible with this view.
should we be optimistic or pessimistic towards scientific realism?
optimistic version of scientific realism = thinks we can be confident that science is succeeding in uncovering the basic structure of the world and how it works
pessimistic version of scientific realism = thinks that it is very hard for us humans to get the right theories, that the evidence is often misleading, and we often get too confident too quickly
Kuhn-1962-structure-of-scientific-revolutions at times seems like a pessimistic scientific realist as he seems to think that the world is just so complicated that our theories will always run into trouble, and hence why scientific progress is a vicious cycle and that paradigms are doomed to fail as we try to force nature into boxes.
pessimistic-meta-induction = since fundamental ideas have changed so often within science (especially science), we should always expect our current views to turn out to be wrong
my current position on defining scientific realism
supporting Godfrey-Smith’s definition of scientific realism: actual and reasonable aim of science is to give us an accurate description of reality, including those aspects of it that lie beyond direct observation. However, I posit that this does not commit us to the strong claim