anti-realism = it is not reasonable to believe that the world is approx. the way in which our best scientific theories describe it as being
Anti-realist would be committed with the observable phenomenon like tables, chairs, etc. but would believe that is not reasonable to believe that electrons, fundamental particles, genes, etc. in our scientific theories is not actually present in the world.
Van-Fraassen-constructive-empiricism
Metaphysical Constructivism
One way to be a scientific anti-realist is to reject the common-sense realism.
One argument for Metaphysical constructivism is based on a strong view of Kuhn’s ideas about scientific-revolutions-as-changes-of-world-view. This idea implies that the world is created or constructed by scientific theorizing, and if it is not possible for a scientific theory to describe the world as it exists independent of thought, it shows that reality is dependent on what people think and say.1
Another argument is based on Kant’s views. Kant makes a distinction between the phenomenal world (the world as it appears to humans) which is a representation of the noumenal world (world as it exists independent of perception). We can only know the phenomenal world, which can
only be represented in science using concepts capable of being grasped by humans (e.g., space,
time). So, it again implies that reality determines what scientists and other people think by stamping itself on the passive mind2
- An objection to Kant’s view is that if we can never have access to the noumenal world, then how do we know it even exists??
Underdetermination of theory by observational consequences
For Newtonian mechanics,
- = the center of gravity of the solar system is at rest with respect to Absolute space
- = the center of gravity of the solar system moves with constant velocity with respect to absolute space
- and have the same set of observational consequences O
This argues that you can have different theories with the same body of observations.
“The parts of space cannot be seen or distinguished from one another” - Newton, Principia
Stanford - Recurrent Transient underdetermination
This combines underdetermination + pessimistic-meta-induction
In the past, scientists failed to conceive of alternative theories that were consistent with
their evidence. In the future, scientists will look back and recognize that present scientists are failing to conceive of alternative theories that are consistent with our present evidence.
This argument focuses on the predictions, rather than the entities like in pessimistic-meta-induction.
We fail to think about theories in the present day that will in the future might turn out to be the obvious theory. This is arguing for scientific anti-realism that we cannot say that our current scientific theories are accurate descriptions of reality because there may be alternative theories that support our observations that we haven’t even thought of.
Examples of unconceived alternatives:
• General Relativity in 1800’s = No one had thought of general relativity in 1800’s and yet this theory is compatible with the evidence they had in the 1800’s
• Molecular Genetics in 1800’s