Abstracts Accepted for NewThinking about Scientific Realism.pdf

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Page 1 of 46 1 Abstracts submitted for the conference “New Thinking about Scientific Realism” Contents A [1]: General Scientific Realism .................................................................................................................................................. 2 1) Morteza Sedaghat - A Practicalist Defense of Scientific Realism ............................................................................... 2 2) J Wolff – A new target for scientific realism debates ................................................................................................. 3 3) Samuel Schindler – Kuhnian theory choice, convergence, and base rates ................................................................ 3 4) Raphael Scholl – Realism from a causal point of view: Snow, Koch and von Pettenkofer on Cholera ...................... 4 5) Mark Newman – Scientific Realism, the Pessimistic Meta-Induction, and Our Sense of Understanding .................. 4 6) Axel Gelfert – Experimental Realism and Desiderata of Manipulative Success ......................................................... 6 7) Jack Ritchie – I could be wrong but it just depends what you mean: explaining the inconclusiveness of the realism-anti-realism debate................................................................................................................................................ 7 8) Dean Peters – Observability, perception and the extended mind ............................................................................. 7 9) Adam Toon – Empiricism for cyborgs - ....................................................................................................................... 9 10) Curtis Forbes – An Existential Approach to Scientific Realism ............................................................................... 9 11) Andrew Nicholson – Are there any new directions for scientific realism?........................................................... 10 B [2]: Truth, Progress, Success and Scientific Realism ...................................................................................................... 11 12) Michael Shaffer – Farewell to the Realism/Anti-realism Debate: Practical Realism and Scientific Progress....... 11 13) Juan Manuel Vila Pérez – A Critique of Scientific Pluralism – The Case For QM .................................................. 12 14) Danielle Macbeth – Revolution and Realism? ...................................................................................................... 13 15) Nora Berenstain – Scientific Realism and the Commitment to Modality, Mathematics, and Metaphysical Dependence ...................................................................................................................................................................... 14 16) John Collier – Information Can Preserve Structure across Scientific Revolutions ................................................ 15 17) Juha Saatsi – Pessimistic induction and realist recipes: a reassessment.............................................................. 16 18) Mario Alai – Deployment vs. discriminatory realism ............................................................................................ 16 19) Gauvain Leconte – Predictive success, partial truth and skeptical realism .......................................................... 18 20) Sreekumar Jayadevan – Does History of Science Underdetermine the Scientific Realism Debate? A Metaphilosophical Perspective......................................................................................................................................... 19 21) Hennie Lötter – Thinking anew about truth in scientific realism ......................................................................... 20 C [3]: Selective Realisms ............................................................................................................................................................... 22 22) Xavi Lanao – Towards a Structuralist Ontology: an Account of Individual Objects .............................................. 22 23) David William Harker – Whiggish history or the benefit of hindsight? ................................................................ 23 24) Christian Carman & José DíezLaunching Ptolemy to the Scientific Realism Debate: Did Ptolemy Make Novel and Successful Predictions? .............................................................................................................................................. 24 25) Timothy Lyons – Epistemic Selectivity, Historical Testability, and the Non-Epistemic Tenets of Scientific Realism.............................................................................................................................................................................. 25 26) Peter Vickers – A Disjunction Problem for Selective Scientific Realism ............................................................... 26 27) Raphael Kunstler – Semirealist’s dilemma............................................................................................................ 27 28) Elena Castellani – Structural Continuity and Realism ........................................................................................... 28 29) Tom Pashby – Entities, Experiments and Events: Structural Realism Reconsidered............................................ 29 30) Angelo Cei – The Epistemic Structural Realist Program. Some interference. ...................................................... 30 31) Kevin Coffey – Is Underdetermination a Problem for Structural Realism? .......................................................... 31 32) Michael Vlerick - A biological case against entity realism .................................................................................... 32 33) Rune Nyrup – Perspectival realism: where's the perspective in that? ................................................................. 33 D [4]: The Semantic View and Scientific Realism ................................................................................................................ 34 34) Alex Wilson – Voluntarism and Psillos’ Causal-Descriptive Theory of Reference ................................................ 34 35) Alistair Isaac – The Locus of the Realism Question for the Semantic View .......................................................... 35 36) Francesca Pero – The Role of Epistemic Stances within the Semantic View ........................................................ 36 E [5]: Scientific Realism and the Social Sciences.................................................................................................................. 37 37) David Spurret – Physicalism as an empirical hypothesis ...................................................................................... 37 F [6]: Anti-Realism .......................................................................................................................................................................... 38 38) Moti Mizrahi – The Problem of Unconceived Objections and Scientific Antirealism ........................................... 38 39) Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem – The Possibility of an Epistemic Realism...................................................................... 40 40) Yafeng Shan – What entities exist ........................................................................................................................ 40 41) Daniel Kodaj – From conventionalism to phenomenalism ................................................................................... 42 42) Fabio Sterpetti – Optimality models and scientific realism .................................................................................. 43

Transcript of Abstracts Accepted for NewThinking about Scientific Realism.pdf

Page 1: Abstracts Accepted for NewThinking about Scientific Realism.pdf

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Abstracts submitted for the conference “New Thinking about Scientific Realism” Contents A [1]: General Scientific Realism .................................................................................................................................................. 2

1) Morteza Sedaghat - A Practicalist Defense of Scientific Realism ............................................................................... 2 2) J Wolff – A new target for scientific realism debates ................................................................................................. 3 3) Samuel Schindler – Kuhnian theory choice, convergence, and base rates ................................................................ 3 4) Raphael Scholl – Realism from a causal point of view: Snow, Koch and von Pettenkofer on Cholera ...................... 4 5) Mark Newman – Scientific Realism, the Pessimistic Meta-Induction, and Our Sense of Understanding .................. 4 6) Axel Gelfert – Experimental Realism and Desiderata of Manipulative Success ......................................................... 6 7) Jack Ritchie – I could be wrong but it just depends what you mean: explaining the inconclusiveness of the realism-anti-realism debate................................................................................................................................................ 7 8) Dean Peters – Observability, perception and the extended mind ............................................................................. 7 9) Adam Toon – Empiricism for cyborgs - ....................................................................................................................... 9 10) Curtis Forbes – An Existential Approach to Scientific Realism ............................................................................... 9 11) Andrew Nicholson – Are there any new directions for scientific realism? ........................................................... 10

B [2]: Truth, Progress, Success and Scientific Realism ...................................................................................................... 11 12) Michael Shaffer – Farewell to the Realism/Anti-realism Debate: Practical Realism and Scientific Progress. ...... 11 13) Juan Manuel Vila Pérez – A Critique of Scientific Pluralism – The Case For QM .................................................. 12 14) Danielle Macbeth – Revolution and Realism? ...................................................................................................... 13 15) Nora Berenstain – Scientific Realism and the Commitment to Modality, Mathematics, and Metaphysical Dependence ...................................................................................................................................................................... 14 16) John Collier – Information Can Preserve Structure across Scientific Revolutions ................................................ 15 17) Juha Saatsi – Pessimistic induction and realist recipes: a reassessment .............................................................. 16 18) Mario Alai – Deployment vs. discriminatory realism ............................................................................................ 16 19) Gauvain Leconte – Predictive success, partial truth and skeptical realism .......................................................... 18 20) Sreekumar Jayadevan – Does History of Science Underdetermine the Scientific Realism Debate? A Metaphilosophical Perspective......................................................................................................................................... 19 21) Hennie Lötter – Thinking anew about truth in scientific realism ......................................................................... 20

C [3]: Selective Realisms ............................................................................................................................................................... 22 22) Xavi Lanao – Towards a Structuralist Ontology: an Account of Individual Objects .............................................. 22 23) David William Harker – Whiggish history or the benefit of hindsight? ................................................................ 23 24) Christian Carman & José DíezLaunching Ptolemy to the Scientific Realism Debate: Did Ptolemy Make Novel and Successful Predictions? .............................................................................................................................................. 24 25) Timothy Lyons – Epistemic Selectivity, Historical Testability, and the Non-Epistemic Tenets of Scientific Realism. ............................................................................................................................................................................. 25 26) Peter Vickers – A Disjunction Problem for Selective Scientific Realism ............................................................... 26 27) Raphael Kunstler – Semirealist’s dilemma ............................................................................................................ 27 28) Elena Castellani – Structural Continuity and Realism ........................................................................................... 28 29) Tom Pashby – Entities, Experiments and Events: Structural Realism Reconsidered ............................................ 29 30) Angelo Cei – The Epistemic Structural Realist Program. Some interference. ...................................................... 30 31) Kevin Coffey – Is Underdetermination a Problem for Structural Realism? .......................................................... 31 32) Michael Vlerick - A biological case against entity realism .................................................................................... 32 33) Rune Nyrup – Perspectival realism: where's the perspective in that? ................................................................. 33

D [4]: The Semantic View and Scientific Realism ................................................................................................................ 34 34) Alex Wilson – Voluntarism and Psillos’ Causal-Descriptive Theory of Reference ................................................ 34 35) Alistair Isaac – The Locus of the Realism Question for the Semantic View .......................................................... 35 36) Francesca Pero – The Role of Epistemic Stances within the Semantic View ........................................................ 36

E [5]: Scientific Realism and the Social Sciences .................................................................................................................. 37 37) David Spurret – Physicalism as an empirical hypothesis ...................................................................................... 37

F [6]: Anti-Realism .......................................................................................................................................................................... 38 38) Moti Mizrahi – The Problem of Unconceived Objections and Scientific Antirealism ........................................... 38 39) Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem – The Possibility of an Epistemic Realism ...................................................................... 40 40) Yafeng Shan – What entities exist ........................................................................................................................ 40 41) Daniel Kodaj – From conventionalism to phenomenalism ................................................................................... 42 42) Fabio Sterpetti – Optimality models and scientific realism .................................................................................. 43

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A [1]: General Scientific Realism

1) Morteza Sedaghat - A Practicalist Defense of Scientific Realism

Practicalism, or as it is introduced in the relevant literature “pragmatic encroachment”, in epistemology is explicitly this view that practical factors can be constitutive parts of epistemic justification. In other words, in contrast to what traditional epistemology says, what constitute epistemic justification are not merely truth-related factors such as evidence, reliability, etc. Practicalists argue for a pragmatic condition on epistemic justification, JA: if S’s belief that p is epistemically justified, then S is practically rational to act as if p. Contrastively speaking, the less S is practically rational to act as if p (i.e., according to what was said above, the less practical benefits S acquires to act as if p), the less S’s belief that p is epistemically justified. Call this latter condition, CJA.

The argument behind JA (and similarly CJA) is the following one: (1) S’s belief that p is epistemically justified. (2)For two states of affairs A and B, S knows that if p then S is practically rational to prefer A. (3)Therefore, S is practically rational to prefer A, i.e. to act as if p. (4)Therefore, JA (and similarly CJA) holds. In other words, following what practicalism says, if S's belief that p is epistemically justified, this belief should provide enough practical reason for him to act accordingly and thereby acting as if p should produce more practical benefits for him in contrast to acting as if ~p. If, anyway, the latter does not hold, according to practicalism, S's belief that p is not epistemically justified for one cannot attribute that belief (i.e. the belief of p) to S in order to rationalize his actions. I am, for example, epistemically justified to believe that my home's refrigerator is empty for, among other things, I am practically rational to stop at the grocery to buy something, i.e. to act as if my home's refrigerator is empty. If I was not practically rational to stop at the grocery to buy something, it would be suspected that my belief that my home's refrigerator is empty is epistemically justified. In better words, since truth leads to success, if one's acting as if p does not lead to success it might be the case that p does not hold and thereby one does not know that p. Now let us consider the case in which p="scientific realism holds" and ~p="scientific realism does not hold" and see acting as if which of p or ~p produces more practical benefits. Accordingly, if practicalism holds, we can decide the belief of which of p or ~p is more epistemically justified and hence which of p or ~p is more likely to be true. If finally p comes out to be more likely to be true, we have a practicalist defense of scientific realism, i.e. a defense of scientific realism conditionally that practicalism holds. In this presentation, having provided some intuitions for what practicalism says regardless of objections against it, I want to show that S acquires more practical benefits (explanation, novel prediction and unification among others) to act as if "scientific realism does hold" than to act as if " scientific realism does not holds ". Hence, a practicalist defense of scientific realism. References: Hawthorne, J. (2004), Knowledge and Lotteries, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanely, J. (2005), Knowledge and Practical Interests, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. (2010), Knowledge in an Uncertain World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. (2007), On Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research”, R. LXXV, nr 3, s. 558-589. Nagel, E. (1950), Science and semantic Realism, “Philosophy of Science”, nr 17, s. 174-181. Duhem, P. (1906), The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, trans. P. Wiener, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1954) Duhem, P. (1908), To Save the Phenomena, trans. E. Donald and C. Mascher, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1969) Mach, E. (1893), Popular Scientific Lectures, Chicago: Open Court. Carnap, R. (1928), The Logical Structure of The World, trans. R.George, Berkeley: University of California Press. Carnap, R. (1936), Testability and Meaning, “Philosophy of Science”, nr 3, s. 419-471. Van Frassen, B.C. (1980), The Scientific Image, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Van Frassen, B.C. (1985), Empricism in Philosophy of Science, [w:] Images of Science, red. Churchland P.M. and Hooker C.A., Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Van Frassen, B.C. (1989), Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Earman, J. (1992), Bayes or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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2) J Wolff – A new target for scientific realism debates

Realism and antirealism debates exist in many different areas of philosophy. The targets of such debates are typically either certain kinds of entities, whose existence a realist affirms and an antirealism denies, or certain kinds of claims, which a realist takes to be largely true, and an antirealist takes to be either systematically false, or as perhaps not even truth-apt. The ontological and semantic formulations of realism debates are not unrelated; a typical reason an antirealist might have for thinking that certain claims are systematically false is that the entities purportedly referred to in those claims do not exist, and accordingly there is nothing to make true the claims in question. In my paper I aim to do three things. First, I argue that it is far from clear what the target of the current scientific realism debate is. Secondly, I argue that both realists and antirealists could benefit from re-conceptualizing realism debates in the philosophy of science as debates about particular sorts of claims. Finally, I consider several candidates for claims, which might serve as the target of re-conceptualized scientific realism debates. To argue for the first point, I show that the current targets of scientific realism debates are problematic. One option is to take science (or scientific discourse) as a whole to be the target of scientific realism debates. This is prima facie plausible, since the status of science as an endeavor or institution is arguably what is at stake in these debates. The downside of taking science as a whole as the target is that it leads to a wellknown impasse between the antirealists’ pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) and the realists’ no-miracles argument (NMA). Both arguments, at least in their original intent, are directed at science as a whole: the NMA insists that antirealists fail to explain the incredible success of science, whereas the PMI points to the allegedly numerous cases of overturned theories to suggest that even our own best theories might very well turn out to be false. There are three alternatives to this impasse. The first is van Fraassen’s famous proposal to make the aim of science the target of realism debates; realists, van Fraassen suggests, are those who take science to aim for truth, whereas empiricists are those who take science to aim merely for empirical adequacy. The second response comes in the form of various selective realisms, which try to identify that part of scientific theories which is likely to survive through theory change. The third response is to abandon science as a whole as the target, and to take particular theories or models as targets of scientific realism instead. An example of this can be seen in recent trends of “retail” as opposed to “wholesale” realism, which restricts the NMA to particular models or theories, without committing to an extension of the argument to science as a whole. I argue that each of these responses faces severe difficulties, which motivates the search for an alternative. To argue for the second main point, I compare scientific realism debates to realism debates in other fields, in particular in meta-ethics. Questions about realism in ethics proceed from having identified a distinctive feature of ethical claims: they are normative. In contrasting the normativity of ethical claims with that of descriptive claims, questions about realism in ethics can be raised as questions about what makes distinctively normative claims true, in (putative) contrast to the truth-makers of descriptive claims. This suggests that it is a good strategy for articulating realism debates about a particular discourse to identify which claims, if any, in that discourse appear to be problematic, and why. To so benefits both realists and antirealists, since it allows for a clearer statement of the various realist and antirealist positions one might want to take. In light of this I look at several candidates for such claims within science: claims about unobservable entities, modal claims, and quantitative claims. Science arguably involves claims of each sort, which means a realist about science should be in a position to take (at least some) claims of these three types to be true. I argue that while each kind of claim is potentially epistemically problematic when compared to qualitative, non-modal claims about observables, modal claims and quantitative claims are, in addition, also semantically and metaphysically problematic. For both modal claims and quantitative claims, the question arises what makes them true, and it seems, at least prima facie, that their truth-makers differ from the truth-makers of non-modal claims and the truth-makers of qualitative claims respectively. This is not the case for claims about unobservable entities: we have no good reason to think that electrons cannot make true claims about electrons in very much the same way in which apples make true claims about apples. That unobservable entities are at best epistemically, but not ontologically, problematic is widely recognized by contemporary empiricists as well. An antirealist position about science, which targets modal claims or quantitative claims, by contrast, would have metaphysical and semantic aspects as well. Conversely, a realist about science would do well to provide truth-makers for modal claims and quantitative claims. I conclude that both modal claims and quantitative claims make for an appropriate target of realism debates about science.

3) Samuel Schindler – Kuhnian theory choice, convergence, and base rates

The arguably strongest contemporary argument for scientific realism, the No-Miracles-Argument (NMA), has it that it would be a miracle if our theories were as successful as they are, and not be true. As Howson (2000) pointed out, however, as normally stated, the NMA commits the base rate fallacy: it ignores the ‘base rate’ / prior probability of theories being true (depending on one’s preference for the interpretation of probabilities in frequentist or subjectivist terms, respectively). But the base rates matter: when the base rate is very low, the posterior probability of a successful theory being true will be very low, even when the ‘error rates’, i.e., the false positive and

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the false negative rates (i.e., the rate of a theory being successful if false, and the rate of a theory not being successful if true, respectively) are very low. And apparently, setting the values for the base rates is elusive. If probabilities are construed objectively, then it looks as though we have no way of finding out about them. If, on the other hand, probabilities are construed subjectively, then both the realist and antirealist can set the priors as they please. A rational debate about realism can then no longer be had (Magnus and Callender 2004). This paper will argue that the Kuhnian picture of theory choice suggests a strengthened defense of scientific realism. On the Kuhnian picture of theory choice, it is normally the case that a theory possesses some virtues but not others. The following ‘amplified’ No-Miracles-type argument (NMtA) then suggests itself: it would be an unlikely coincidence if a theory were to possess all the five standard virtues and not be true. When formalizing such a NMtA, error rates now need to be fixed for each of the theoretical virtues, giving the NMtA more leverage than the traditional NMA. Furthermore, it will be shown that there are principled and non-arbitrary grounds for setting the error rates at particular levels, whilst the principle of charity towards the antirealist is observed. Setting the error rates in this way will then (non-arbitrarily) determine the base rates. The base rate neglect charge is defeated. Interestingly it turns out that the Kuhnian picture of theory choice allows the realist to concede that the base level of true theories is rather low and still have it her way. Given the principled reasons for setting the error rates, the antirealist can now no longer simply insist that the base rate be lower. She must challenge the fixing of the error rates by argument. Magnus and Callender’s skepticism about the ‘resolvability’ of the realism debate is thus rebutted.

4) Raphael Scholl – Realism from a causal point of view: Snow, Koch and von Pettenkofer on Cholera

In current debates about scientific realism, much deserved attention is paid to the “problem of unconceived alternatives”, which P. Kyle Stanford has developed in a rich series of detailed and well chosen case studies. However, it has not yet been explored how the problem of unconceived alternatives presents itself in sciences which can be broadly described as causal and mechanistic (for instance, molecular biology). There are reasons to think that the traditional problem as formulated by Stanford does not present itself: In causal inference, the space of possible hypotheses tends to be exhausted by the contradictories “P is a cause of Q” and “P is not a cause of Q” (this was emphasized by Peter Lipton in his debate with Bas Van Fraassen about the “argument from the bad lot”). While it may be difficult to determine which of these is true, there is no obvious room for unconceived alternatives. Nevertheless, there is ample room for debate about causal claims. First, we may question whether causal relevance or salience has been successfully demonstrated (for example if confounding is suspected). Second, we may ask what causal co-factors C are necessary for a given cause P to exert its effect on Q, and how often these co-factors are in fact realized. Third, we may debate the existence and relevance of alternative causal pathways promoting or preventing the occurrence of Q. Fourth, we may define event types at too coarse-grained or too fine-grained levels of description. Fifth and finally, there may exist unknown potential causes whose causal relevance we have not yet explored. If this characterization is correct, we would expect it to affect the dynamics of actual scientific debates in the causal and mechanistic sciences. In a detailed case study of John Snow’s, Robert Koch’s and Max Joseph von Pettenkofer’s work on cholera in the 19th century, I will show that the categories outlined above illuminate large parts of the actual debates about the causation and mechanism of cholera. I conclude that there are important parts of science where “unconceived alternatives” as traditionally conceived are not the primary problem for scientific realism.

5) Mark Newman – Scientific Realism, the Pessimistic Meta-Induction, and Our Sense of Understanding

In his (2005, 2006, 2011, 2014) Michael Devitt argues that an adequate version of the Pessimistic Meta-Induction must show not only that we have frequently got things wrong in our unobservable posits, but also that despite methodological improvements, we have not been getting increasingly right. His view is that we now have much more sophisticated and rigorous scientific methods than in previous centuries, so appeals to historical errors such as Phlogiston, Caloric, and the Luminiferous Ether are irrelevant to current optimism about our theories. This amounts to the claim that the PMI fails as an argument against scientific realism unless we have evidence against our highly reliable current scientific methods. J.D. Trout has provided the seed of just such undermining evidence. In his series of papers (2002, 2005, 2007) he argues that the sense of understanding, which often reflects our feeling of having grasped the underlying causal nature of some part of the world, has contributed to a long historical train of scientific errors. The sense of understanding, he argues, is highly unreliable, and yet is at least part of the reason scientists accept theories (he cites Ptolemy, Galen, and the alchemists). This alone does not provide enough evidence to undermine Devitt’s claim, but Mark Newman (2010) has argued that the error of taking ‘intelligibility’ of a theory too seriously led directly to the most noted PMI cases: the acceptance of Phlogiston, Caloric, and the Luminiferous Ether. Unless scientists are nowadays ignoring ‘intelligibility’ as a part of their selection criteria for theories, (a dubious claim), then when combined with Trout’s thesis Newman’s work shows, contra Devitt, that we do currently have reasons

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to think contemporary scientific methodology is suspicious. Their work therefore provides a new reason for thinking the PMI plausible after all. One might think we ought to recommend scientists cease using their sense of understanding when evaluating theories. I don’t pursue that line, for their sense of understanding may still have epistemic benefit. Instead, I believe a different account of understanding can be used by the realist to respond to the PMI, and I provide a theory along those lines. In contrast to the internalist sense of understanding about which Trout sows seeds of doubt, this is an externalist account, one which avoids the subjective and unreliable phenomenology of understanding, instead opting for objective, testable evaluative criteria. I argue that when certain understanding criteria are satisfied by a theory, and combined with independent background evidence for underlying physical principles of that theory, they are found to track with successful theories in the history of science, and fail to track those ultimately false theories which fall on the scrap heap of science. This account of understanding therefore provides a reason to reject the PMI: when scientists have selected theories that they understood in this technical sense, and they had independent evidence for the underlying physical principles of the theory, they have selected correctly. I think it plausible to believe our current scientific methods incorporate just such a condition of understanding on adoption of new theories. I offer the following externalist account of understanding, which I call the Inferential Model of Scientific Understanding (IMU): (IMU): S understands scientific theory T iff S can reliably use principles Pn constitutive of T to make goal-conducive inferences for each step in a problem-solving cycle which reliably results in solutions to qualitative problems relevant to that theory. This definition of ‘understanding theory’ demands a fair amount from the scientist, and I think when it is satisfied we have good reason to be initially optimistic about the theory in question. I argue that past failed theories never enabled scientists to fully satisfy this condition, though our current theories do so. The key to satisfying this definition is a scientist’s ability to use underlying physical principles to make correct inferences regarding each part of a specific problem-cycle relevant to the theory. The problem-solving cycle requires satisfaction of four steps: (i) correctly describing the problem by constructing a mental model; (ii) selecting correct background theoretical principles relevant to the problem; (iii) applying those background principles to a specific problem case; (iv) planning the problem-solving sequence from start to finish. Theories that are intelligible in this way, I argue, possess the property of being reliable indicators of truth when they also have background independent evidence for those physical constitutive principles. To defend this claim I make the following argument: To possess the resources for a scientist to satisfy (IMU) a theory must incorporate correct underlying principles (principles incorporating properties which explain the behavior of the properties of the problem) which are used to make correct qualitative inferences about the problem at hand. For instance, we have independent evidence for the principle of conservation of mechanical energy. On the other hand although Phlogiston, Caloric, and the Luminiferous Ether had explanatory underlying principles like this—principles which explained why their particles had the properties they did, these principles were not independently confirmed. Contemporary theories we consider approximately true do have such independently confirmed principles. Thus, we have reason to think this externalist account of understanding tracks with correct theories and can be used to defend realism against the PMI. I close by considering why we need an externalist account of understanding, after all, if the internalist sense of understanding can similarly point to constitutive principles which have to possess independent evidence, why bother with externalist understanding? I answer that the sense of understanding, unlike my externalist account, does not direct us to those physical principles which must be independently confirmed in order to secure theory justification. References Devitt, Michael (2005) “Scientific Realism”. In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 767-91. ______. (2006). “The Pessimistic Meta-Induction: A Response to Jacob Busch”. Sats – Nordic Journal of Philosophy 7: 127-35. ______. (2011) “Are Unconceived Alternatives a Problem for Scientific Realism?” Journal for General Philosophy of Science 42: 285-93. ______. (2014) “Realism/Anti-Realism”. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, Maricn Curd and Stathis Psillos, eds. New York: Routledge. Newman, Mark (2010) “Beyond Structural Realism: pluralist criteria for theory evaluation” Synthese 174: 413-443. Trout, J.D. (2002) “Scientific Explanation and the Sense of Understanding” Philosophy of Science, 69, pp. 213-233. ______. (2005) “Paying the Price for a Theory of Explanation” Philosophy of Science, 72, pp. 198-208. ______. (2007) “The Psychology of Scientific Explanation” Philosophy Compass 2: 564-91.

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6) Axel Gelfert – Experimental Realism and Desiderata of Manipulative Success

In his influential 1983 book Representing and Intervening, Ian Hacking argues for manipulative success as the decisive criterion for when theoretical entities should be considered real. Only once we are able ‘to manipulate other parts of nature in a systematic way’ using the (candidate) entities concerned, will they have ‘ceased to be something hypothetical, something inferred’ (Hacking 1983: 262). In a later paper, he reaffirms this position in response to criticism: ‘When we use entities as tools, as instruments of inquiry, we are entitled to regard them as real’ (Hacking 1989: 578). The resulting form of scientific realism is usually referred to as ‘entity realism’ (or ‘experimental realism’), and has received significant attention over the past couple of decades –with respect to specific scientific examples (e.g., Shapere 1993, Gelfert 2003), in relation to more general forms of ‘semirealism’ (Chakravartty 1998), and concerning its place within the realism/anti-realism spectrum (Massimi 2004). The present paper aims to forge a connection between this debate and recent accounts of scientific practice and experimentation; it does so through the lens of one specific scientific challenge to entity realism, namely the case of ‘quasi-particles’ in physics (Gelfert 2003), which has recently been the subject of further discussion and elaboration (Falkenburg 2007, 2014; Gelfert 2011; McKenzie 2010; see also Vallor 2009). At one level, the case of quasi-particles fits with earlier scientific challenges that were intended to call into question Hacking’s criterion of manipulative success. Thus, Shapere (1993) argues that, surely, manipulability – that is, our ability to exploit the causal powers of (at first merely ‘hypothetical’) entities – cannot be a necessary condition for their being considered real. After all, there are many – entirely contingent – reasons why we may be unable to exploit a real entity’s causal powers: for example, the entity may simply be too large or too far removed from us – or both, as in Shapere’s example of gravitational lenses. Gravitational lenses, Shapere argues, manifest themselves in clearly observable ways (by bending light from distant stars around them, thus producing clearly observable patterns on images produced by telescopes). Perhaps, then, manipulative success is not intended as a necessary condition at all, but as a sufficient condition – that is, there can be no instances of successful, systematic manipulation without the exploitation of causal powers that are unique to the presumed entities (or ‘experimental tools’) in question. However, as Gelfert (2003) argues, physics is replete with examples where such a move from systematic manipulative success to the reality of the hypothetical entities in question is not warranted. This applies especially to the case of ‘quasi-particles’ – phenomena in complex correlated systems (e.g. many-electron systems) which mimick the (chimerical) appearance of independent particles (complete with apparently measurable properties such as a virtual ‘effective mass', average life-time, electric charge, and so forth). Examples of quasi-particles are ‘electron holes’ and excitons in semiconductor physics, or phonons (quantized lattice vibrations) in solid-state crystals. The existence of such quasi-particles is illusory, insofar as quasi-particles are mere artefacts of the collective behaviour of the correlated many-electron system: their apparent properties and effects do not have independent reality, but are simply functions of the total many-electron system. It would seem then, that Hacking’s criterion of manipulative success – initially put forward as a fail-safe criterion for distinguishing between ‘real’ (causally efficacious) and ‘merely theoretical’ (potentially non-existent) entities – fails to deliver any necessary or sufficient conditions on when we should consider scientific entities to be real or not. However, the case of quasi-particles may not be as clear-cut as it seems. As Falkenburg (2007, 2014) has argued, acknowledging the shortcomings of Hacking’s criterion of manipulative success does not mean that there is no interesting middle-ground of ‘particle-like’ phenomena, where the proper articulation of such phenomena may require the use of ‘particle-like’ (or ‘entity-like’) terms. The question, then, is not ‘Do quasi-particles exist?’ but ‘How do quasi-particles exist?’ (Falkenburg 2014). Rather than limiting its argument to the status of quasi-particles in particular, the present paper adopts a diagnostic approach towards the initial challenge to Hacking’s criterion (Gelfert 2003) and the subsequent criticisms of it (Falkenburg 2007, McKenzie 2010, Falkenburg 2014). What the debate shows, it is argued, is a need for a richer characterization of experimental practice – including an account of desiderata for what counts as an instance of ‘successful manipulation’ – as well as for a more fine-grained taxonomy of the ontological and explanatory status of scientific entities. Regarding the former, the paper draws on Vallor’s (2009) phenomenological defense of experimental realism and Pickering’s (1993) concept of the ‘mangle of practice’ – that is, the interplay between resistance and accommodation that plays out in the experimenter’s attempt to bring experimental skill and theoretical knowledge (including what Hacking calls ‘home truths’) to bear on a concrete empirical challenge. Regarding the latter, it is argued that, although the initial challenge (Gelfert 2003) to the criterion of manipulative success stands – at least to the extent that it addresses Hacking’s proposal on its own terms – the subsequent criticisms (Falkenburg 2007, 2014; McKenzie 2010) point to the existence of a stable ‘middle ground’ of quasi-entities. Whatever degree of reality such quasi-entities enjoy is not jeopardized by entity realism’s failure to distinguish between entities and quasi-entities.

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7) Jack Ritchie – I could be wrong but it just depends what you mean: explaining the inconclusiveness of the realism-anti-realism debate.

We can identify in broad terms two ways of characterising the realism-anti-realism debate in the philosophy of science. One, made famous by van Fraassen, concerns whether the aim of science is truth or something less ambitious like empirical adequacy. The other concerns whether we have good reasons to believe in the claims of a scientific theory that go beyond what has been or can be observed. The first is concerned with a descriptive matter: what is the goal of science. The second is deals with a normative matter: what ought we to believe. In this paper I argue that the second debate, at least in its contemporary form, has run its course. Realism-anti-realism debates of this second kind focus on two main arguments: the No Miracles Argument and Pessimistic Meta-Induction (or sophisticated variations of it like Stanford’s Problem of Unconceived Alternatives). Realists typically claim we ought to believe our scientific theories because they are empirically successful and the best explanation of that empirical success is that they are true or approximately true. Anti-realists seek to undermine this argument by appealing to the history of science. They point to cases of empirically successful theories in which key theoretical terms such as ‘ether’ failed to refer so undermining claims that such theories were true or even approximately true. The realist in turn will say that closer examination of these cases provides evidence of a more sophisticated kind of referential continuity which vindicates realism; and so on. It is this dialectic which is doomed to be forever inconclusive. The problems with the standard debate can be grouped into two kinds: epistemological and semantic. Epistemological problems All parties to the debate should be fallibilists. They should admit that we might be wrong in unknown ways about what we believe about the world. Given this is so, what is sometimes called the prospective challenge for realism falls away. If the anti-realist expects that the realists should be able to identify elements within a theory which they know will be retained whatever the future development of science, then that is a hopeless demand for clairvoyance and at odds with fallibilism. If all that is meant by the prospective challenge is that realists should be able to make plausible but fallible claims about which parts of their theories they consider to be best supported by the evidence and most likely true, then that challenge can easily be met. Scientists and others often have a good idea of which parts of a theory are most secure. However, they would also admit as good fallibilists that they may be and probably are wrong in some of the details. So providing case studies in which scientists’ best guesses about what aspects of a theory would be retained prove nothing unless you reject fallibilism. Semantic problems A presupposition of the debate is that in order to make sense of claims or denials of approximate truth we need to have a well-defined reference relation (or if you are a structural realist perhaps a well-defined semantic similarity relation). We need something like this, the thought goes, to be able to make some sense of the idea that current scientists are talking about roughly the same sort of things as past sciences; and we need to do that in order for it to be even plausible that past theories are approximately true. A great deal of labour then has gone into the project of coming up with the correct theory of reference. I suggest there is a common way of understanding this project which is fundamentally misconceived: it is a mistake to think of theories of references as providing a set of naturalistically specifiable conditions which relate words to some aspect of the world. I illustrate the folly of this approach by appeal to some well-known paradoxes found in the writings of Stephen Stich and Huw Price. What we are in fact be given by various theories of reference or semantic continuity are conditions for interpreting the past theory in the terms of our current theory. Once we recognise that we are interpreting in this way we can see that claims and counterclaims about continuity are mediated by non-factual judgements of reasonableness. We must judge what we think is the most reasonable or the most charitable interpretation of past science. I contend using the example of phlogisten and the ether that the facts of these cases underdetermine realist and anti-realist interpretations. Both are possible and both may be judged reasonable. The upshot of this is that once the bad epistemology and metasemantics are cleared away from the realism-anti-realism debate, there is nothing substantive to be argued about. There are realist ways of articulating the history of science which emphasise continuities; and anti-realist ways which emphasise discontinuities. What we know of the history of science allows either story. I conclude by briefly showing how the permissibility of either a realist or an anti-realist interpretation of the history of science plays a role in van Fraassen’s arguments for Constructive Empiricism, particularly in his characterisation of what Jean Perrin was doing in his famous Brownian motion experiments. I conclude by arguing if there is an interesting realism-anti-realism debate it is of the kind van Fraassen directs us to and in that debate the history of science will play a quite different role.

8) Dean Peters – Observability, perception and the extended mind

In this paper, I will sketch a general account of perception modelled on the account of cognition provided by the “extended mind” thesis (Clarke and Chalmers,1998). This account potentially has many applications, but I focus on

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one, namely the notion of “observability” in the scientific realism debate. Scientific realism states that scientific theories can make (approximately) true claims about not only the observable world, but also about unobservable entities and processes. A major competing view is constructive empiricism (van Fraassen, 1980), which states that we have no warrant for believing claims about unobservables – i.e. those mediated by scientific instruments – and that the goal of science is thus “empirical adequacy”. I will argue that selective scepticism in respect of unobservables is untenable, given the theory of perception sketched out. Churchland (1985) is a forerunner of this approach, arguing that which perceptual capacities we actually happen to possess is too contingent a matter to be epistemically significant. If humans were, for instance, all born with microscopes affixed to their left eye, our natural conception of what counts as “observable” would differ. Van Fraassen (1980, 1985) replies “that what counts as an observable phenomenon is a function of what the epistemic community is (that observable is observable-to-us).” To the constructive empiricist, Churchland’s argument illicitly presupposes that his hypothetical humanoids are already part of our epistemic community. The correct response to this, I will argue, is to emphasise that belief in the outputs of our “native” perceptual capacities also require justification. Psillos (1996) gestures in this direction when he argues that van Fraassen’s arguments against inference to the best explanation apply just as well to the ampliative inference from empirical success to empirical adequacy as they do to the inference from success to truth. The deeper point is that inference to the best explanation is required to warrant any claims about the external world, that is, to warrant treating our senses as perceptual capacities. Consider the standard sceptical worry, that I, the observer, am a brain in a vat, and that the “objects” I am apparently observing do not exist. This worry is undermined by the fact that certain features of objects are best explained by their actual existence. Russell (1912) emphasises the spatiotemporal coherence of objects. A cat, for instance, is first observed in one part of the room, then later in another, without appearing at each intermediate point. Dennett (1992) emphasises that we actively seek out new perceptual contact with objects. So to simulate the existence of an object would require preparing for any possible interaction the brain might wish to have with it, resulting in a “combinatorial explosion” in the number of simulated states required. Thus, although it is logically possible that our perceptions of objects are illusory, the “vat-keeper” would have a far easier time simply providing actual objects! So, there is no obvious way to argue for the existence of even ordinary observable objects without inference to the best explanation. This sort of consideration could be wielded as a Psillos-style tu quoque against the constructive empiricist, attacking at the level of observability rather than empirical adequacy. More interesting, however, is to offer a positive general account of perceptual capacities, drawing on the “extended mind” thesis. Clarke and Chalmers argue that a process should be counted as “mental” if and only if it is functionally integrated into one’s “central” cognitive processes, i.e. is reliably accessible, has a high “bandwidth” connection to the centre, etc. Many (but not all) brain processes meet this standard, and some external processes do as well. For instance, if an Alzheimer’s sufferer uses a notebook to record important facts, Clarke and Chalmers claim that the contents of the notebook should under certain circumstances be considered part of his memory. Analogously, we might say that something counts as a perceptual capacity if and only if it is functionally integrated into our other cognitive (epistemic) processes. Importantly, the key markers of “functional integration” significantly overlap with those features that lead us to infer the existence of objects. Following Russell’s argument, the output of a perceptual capacity should be coherent, both internally and with respect to the output of other capacities. We would doubt that we were really detecting a cat if our visual image of it lacked spatiotemporal coherence, or if we could hear it but were consistently unable to observe it visually. Following Dennett’s argument, a perceptual capacity should be a rich source of information across a wide variety of circumstances, and its output should depend on where it is directed. These criteria – coherence, bandwidth, reliability and directability – are not exhaustive. Nevertheless, different sensors satisfy them to different degrees. Thus, the biological sensors possessed by humans will not necessarily possess all these features to a greater extent than all artificial sensors. For instance, observations obtained via even a simple light microscope are significantly richer in information than the output of the vestibular apparatus (although the latter is usually more reliably available). Thus, to the extent that the outputs of such instruments satisfy the stated criteria, the objects that they purportedly reveal should be counted as observable. Van Fraassen might object that, unlike our native capacities, our artificial “perceptual” capacities are acquired. However, depriving a newborn animal of vision for a time can render it permanently blind (Wiesel and Hubel, 1964), apparently demonstrating that visual capacity is in fact acquired. Moreover, it is implausible that full-fledged perceptual capacities would be “hardwired”, as this would require wiring information to be genetically encoded. Given faculties of learning or neural plasticity, environmental exposure ensures that perceptual organs become functionally integrated. Of course, our native perceptual capacities are no doubt acquired by specialised learning faculties. But it remains to be shown that the acquisition of non-native capacities by means of general-purpose learning faculties differs in kind (as opposed to simply speed) from this more specialised process. I conclude that there is no principled epistemic distinction between native and artificial capacities, and that the observable/unobservable distinction is therefore refuted.

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9) Empiricism for cyborgs - Adam Toon

One important debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists concerns whether we observe things using instruments. Scientific realists argue that we do and that the development of scientific instruments has enabled us to observe new realms of phenomena previously beyond the reach of our senses. According to the realist, for example, the invention of the microscope means that we can now see cells and microbes. In contrast, constructive empiricists argue that the use of instruments does not count as observation. The development of instruments has created new phenomena that we can observe with the naked eye and which our theories must accommodate, such as the tracks in a bubble chamber or the images produced by an electron microscope or CAT scanner, but it has not widened the reach of our senses. Observation remains limited to the use of our unaided senses and, as a result, for the constructive empiricist, so too does scientific knowledge.

Realists often speak of instruments as ‘extensions’ to our normal cognitive capacities. For example, in his book on instruments and computational science, revealingly entitled Extending Ourselves, Paul Humphreys argues that

[o]ne of science’s most important epistemological and metaphysical achievements has been its success in enlarging the range of our natural human abilities (2004, pp. 3-4)

In Humphreys’ view, the extension of our natural abilities through instruments has profound implications for epistemology and philosophy of science. In fact, ‘in extending ourselves, scientific epistemology is no longer human epistemology’ (2004, p. 8).

In this paper, I will ask whether the realist may flesh out her view of instruments by drawing on the extended mind thesis (Clark and Chalmers, 1998). Proponents of the extended mind thesis claim that cognitive processes, including perceptual processes, can sometimes extend beyond our brains and bodies into the environment. Although some have begun to explore the consequences of the extended mind thesis for epistemology (e.g. Clark et al., 2012; Pritchard, 2010; Vaesen, 2011), its implications for the philosophy of science have yet to be properly explored (although see Estany and Sturm, 2014). I will suggest that the extended mind thesis offers a way to make sense of realists’ talk of instruments as extensions to the senses and that it provides the realist with a new argument against the constructive empiricist view of instruments. One defender of the extended mind thesis describes humans as ‘natural born cyborgs’, ever-ready to incorporate external devices into their cognitive processes (Clark, 2003). In this paper, I consider the consequences of this vision of humanity for the debate over scientific realism. The result, I suggest, is an empiricism for cyborgs: a position consistent with the constructive empiricist’s core claim, that we should restrict our belief to observable phenomena, but in which the limits of observation far outstrip what can be seen with the naked eye.

The structure of the paper is as follows. First, in Section 2, I briefly review the debate over instruments between realists and constructive empiricists. In Sections 3 and 4, I introduce the extended mind thesis and show how realists might use it to offer a new argument against the constructive empiricist view of instruments, which I will call the extended perception argument. In Section 5, I consider how this argument differs from well-known realist arguments put forward by Grover Maxwell and Paul Churchland. Finally, in Section 6, I consider some of the strengths of the extended perception argument compared to other realist strategies, as well as some likely objections. We will also see how the debate between realists and constructive empiricists might turn out to depend upon our conception of persons and the bounds of the epistemic community.

10) Curtis Forbes – An Existential Approach to Scientific Realism

My project is to assess the existential value of choosing a realist approach to the philosophical interpretation of science; that is to say, I seek to determine which human values, roles, and activities seem to be best served by a realist “stance” or attitude, in comparison to various antirealist “stances” or attitudes. I make my assessment on the basis of a) historical case studies of working scientists, b) the philosophical implications of realism beyond its metaphysical foundations, and c) the prospects of realism for informing social policy-making. Motivation and Background In a recent and well-received treatment of scientific realism, Anjan Chakravartty took the approach of offering what he calls “not a defence of realism, per se” (2007, xi). This work, instead, is best understood as a “clarification of what realism entails” in terms of its foundational metaphysical assumptions. So while his “primary objective is not to defend or to condemn,” the idea is that when “equipped with a better understanding of what [scientific realism] entails and does not entail, one may find oneself in a better position to defend or condemn it” (ibid, xi-xii). Chakravartty’s particular approach to the realism question can be understood as asking about the consequences of taking a realist attitude for our metaphysical beliefs: what sorts of metaphysical beliefs will we have if we are consistent and committed realists? My approach to the realism question can be similarly understood, as asking about the existential consequences of taking a realist attitude for our social, political, and scientific practices: what kind of person am I likely to be, what values might I serve, what kind of policies can I

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make, and what kind of science will I practice if I choose to be a scientific realist? I have a similar hope for my project to the one that Chakravartty has for his: while not a defence or condemnation of realism on its own, I hope that knowing the historical and possible future effects of scientific realism on social, political, and scientific practices will allow people a more informed choice when choosing to accept or reject it for themselves. Analysis and Assessment My analysis is threefold: first, I assess the consequences of realist attitudes in scientific practice through historical examples, focusing on the contrast between metaphysically inclined and antimetaphysically inclined researchers in late 19th century electrodynamics (Weber and Helmholtz, respectively). This part of my analysis—following Robin Hendry (1995 and 2001)—is meant to challenge some of Arthur Fine’s claims about how choosing a realist or an anti-realist attitude makes little difference to scientific practice. I depart from many commentators (e.g. Hendry 1995 and Psillos 2000) in not arguing that realism is the best philosophical framework for scientific research tout court, but I do argue that there are specific circumstances (e.g. the measuring of natural constants, property magnitudes, and theoretical parameters) in which a realist outlook seems more fruitful than its alternatives, even if something similar can be said for its anti-realist rivals in other circumstances (e.g. an anti-realist empiricist approach seems, historically speaking, to be much more useful when exploring novel phenomena in the laboratory and developing new theoretical frameworks). Second, I assess the ways that realist attitudes can resolve certain philosophical issues relating to the sciences, e.g. with respect to scientific revolutions and the epistemology of the sciences. This part of my analysis is meant to mirror van Fraassen’s contention in The Empirical Stance that an anti-metaphysical attitude can best resolve philosophical issues concerning the nature and implications of radical theoretical change in science. I argue, on the basis of the now familiar “optimistic induction”—and other work by Chakravartty, Psillos, and others—that scientific realists have several very perceptive solutions to the various philosophical problems brought up by scientific revolutions. With a consistent metaphysical backing for the view it would seem that scientific realism, for the most part, faces few philosophical challenges that appear to be better resolved by one of its alternatives. In my third and final section I assess the prospects of realist attitudes in developing science and social policy. I argue that the efforts of realists to make sense of scientific revolutions have generated perspectives on the sciences (e.g. Chakravartty’s distinction between detection and auxiliary properties) that implicitly claim to be capable of making novel predictions about the future of scientific inquiry. If such perspectives prove consistent with the history of science— and as it stands it seems like they are—this would give us some ability to predict the course of future scientific change, and that would be quite useful for various forms of science policymaking. At the same time, I note, overly conservative and hegemonic views have often been supported by misguided realisms, so care must be taken in allowing realism too much sway in social policy-making about the sciences.

11) Andrew Nicholson – Are there any new directions for scientific realism?

Can the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism be satisfactorily resolved? Over the past thirty years several authors (e.g. Fine (1986a, 1986b, 1990), Blackburn (2002) and Stein (1989)) have argued for a negative answer to one or both of these questions. Instead of continuing to attempt to argue for the endorsement of either realism or anti-realism, philosophers of science, we are told, should embrace a “quietism” (Fine, 1986) about such matters. Although views of this sort are united in this claim, they differ over the issue of just what is wrong with the realism/anti-realism debate. On the one hand, there are those, like Fine, who claim that there is a principled distinction to be made between realist and anti-realist interpretations of science. However, the problem is that this distinction is uninteresting or unimportant (Fine (1986a; 1986b)) or does not admit of a neutral basis for adjudication (cf. Wylie (1986), Chakravartty (2011)). On the other hand, there are those, like Blackburn and Stein, who claim that there is no principled distinction here at all. Clearly, the latter view is the more extreme, and the threat which it poses to the project of exploring what new directions exist for scientific realism is consequently more severe. In this paper, I take up the challenge of defending the idea that there is a principled distinction to be had between realist and anti-realist interpretations of science. Central to this task will be an examination of what I take to be the most well-developed argument for the contrary thesis, that presented by Blackburn (2002). The central argument in the explicit case made by Blackburn is to the effect that no coherent, principled distinction can be made between the realist’s notion of belief and the constructive empiricist’s notion of ‘immersion’ (what Blackburn refers to as ‘animation’). I argue that although Blackburn’s explicit focus is on the debate between the scientific realist and the constructive empiricist about the appropriate attitude to take to the theoretical claims of scientific discourse, his arguments readily generalise to the debate between the scientific realist and anti-realist. In brief, the anti-realist, in order to adequately accommodate our, at least, instrumental reliance on science must either endorse a reinterpretation of scientific discourse or endorse the adoption of an epistemic attitude towards

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such discourse which falls short of belief (cf. Stanford (2006)). However, it is the latter option which is preferable, and accommodation of our full instrumental reliance necessitates the endorsement of the adoption of the attitude of acceptance in such a way that we are animated (in Blackburn’s sense) by the relevant theory. Hence the coherence of the distinction between realist and anti-realist interpretations of science depends upon the coherence of the distinction between belief and animation, and so Blackburn’s argument applies directly to this more general case. As a result of this first part of the discussion, I frame the central puzzle which must be resolved if we are to meet Blackburn’s challenge: We must establish a notion of animation which simultaneously satisfies the following four desiderata: (i) the relevant notion of animation must differ from the notion of belief (where this latter concept is rendered in a way which is intuitively acceptable and compatible with scientific realism); (ii) it should be capable of grounding an anti-realist argument to the effect that we should not proceed past animation to belief; (iii) the notion must be recognisably anti-realist; and (iv) it should accommodate our full instrumental reliance on science. In the second part of the paper, I present and assess three approaches one might adopt in establishing the appropriate distinction between belief and animation. The first approach is based on Stanford’s discussion in the last chapter of his (2006), in particular on his attempt to develop a principled and coherent restricted theoretical instrumentalism. The second approach aims to give the appropriate account of animation in terms of contemporary accounts of pretense or make-believe. This approach draws heavily on the philosophical projects of Walton (1990) and Yablo (1998) as well as recent work by Toon (2012). The third approach attempts to account for animation by appealing to second-order cognitive attitudes. I argue that the first strategy does not satisfactorily deal with Blackburn’s challenge since it either falls foul of desideratum (i) or desideratum (iv), above. I then proceed to argue that whilst the second and third approaches are deficient as they stand, with suitable amendment and combination they lay a potential foundation for a more satisfactory approach. In the third and final section of the paper, I provide a preliminary sketch of this more satisfactory alternative. References Blackburn, S. (2002) “Realism: Deconstructing the Debate”. Ratio 15, 111-133. Fine, A. (1986a). “The Natural Ontological Attitude” in The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ---------. (1986b) Unnatural Attitudes: Realist and Instrumentalist Attachments to Science. Mind 95, 149-179. ---------. (1991) “Piecemeal Realism”. Philosophical Studies 61, 79-96 Stanford, K. (2006). Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stein, H. (1989). “Yes, but…Some Skeptical Remarks on Realism and Anti- Realism”. Dialectica 43, 47-65. Toon, A. (2012). Models as make-believe: Imagination, fiction and scientific representation. Palgrave Macmillan. Walton, K. (1990). Mimesis and Make-Believe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Wylie, A. (1986). Arguments for Scientific Realism: The Ascending Spiral. Philosophical Quarterly, 23 (3), 287-297. Yablo, S. (1998). Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 72: 229–6. B [2]: Truth, Progress, Success and Scientific Realism

12) Michael Shaffer – Farewell to the Realism/Anti-realism Debate: Practical Realism and Scientific Progress.

Traditionally scientific realism and scientific anti-realism have been regarded as deeply opposed views of the aims of the sciences. On the one hand, scientific realists of all sorts hold that science aims (in part or in whole) to discover true (or perhaps merely approximately true) theories. On the other hand, anti-realists deny that science aims to discover true theories or even approximately true theories. Many anti-realists also contend that the aim of the sciences is to produce theories that are practically useful in some important sense of that expression. One prominent reason that anti-realists adopt this stance towards scientific theories is that they believe that there are good reasons to hold that all (or even just most) scientific theories are (or must be) qualified by idealizations.1 So, according to this important line of anti-realist thinking anti-realists claim that scientific theories are not, strictly speaking, true. Thus the idealization argument against scientific realism constitutes a powerful attack on scientific

1 See Cartwright 1988 for the most thoroughly worked out version of this view.

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realism.2 It is a direct threat to scientific realism because this argument attacks the feasibility of satisfying the realist’s conception of the aim of scientific theorizing. Moreover, this argument is also supposed to support the contention made by many anti-realists that the real aim of the sciences is only to produce practically useful theories. This is typically because idealizing inherently involves making simplifications that are motivated by practical concerns like computability. In other words, according to such anti-realists, we construct idealized (and hence false) theories because they are practically useful to us and their usefulness is a result of their being simpler and hence more computationally tractable. However, the idealization argument crucially depends on the assumption that if scientific theories are qualified by idealizations, then they are not true (or even approximately true). But, this is by no means an uncontroversial assumption. For example, recently Shaffer (2012) has argued at great length that idealized scientific theories ought to be regimented as special sorts of counterfactuals. The antecedents of these counterfactuals are idealizing assumptions and the consequents are theoretical claims about the behaviors of physical systems. What is then most important for the issues to be discussed here is that idealizing counterfactuals have perfectly ordinary and well-understood truth conditions. Even more importantly, many such claims are simply true. So, the key assumption behind the idealization argument against scientific realism is false. Scientific theories can be true even if they are qualified by idealizing assumptions and the anti-realist’s contention that idealized theories must be adopted for merely practical reasons is erroneous. What this novel response to the idealization argument against scientific realism further suggests about the more general realism/anti-realism debate is that this long running debate is predicated on a simple but deeply important misunderstanding. The nature of this error concerns the compatibility of scientific realism and scientific anti-realism in terms of the aims that they proscribe for scientific theorizing. In brief, the debate is confused because scientific realism and anti-realism need to not be regarded as incompatible and these two views of the aims of the sciences simply aren’t opposed in the way that the parties to the debate have traditionally assumed. All that is required to see this is the recognition that there need not be only one aim of the scientific theorizing. If we cede both realist monism and anti-realist monism about the aims of the sciences we are free to adopt the view that the sciences aim to produce true (or approximately true) theories and the view that the sciences also aim to produce theories that are practically useful because they are idealized. We can adopt a hybrid view of the aims of scientific theorizing that captures the most basic insights of both the realist and the anti-realist. Let us call this view practical realism and the core insight of this hybrid view is that literal truth and practical usefulness must be balanced in solving scientific problems. So, while science aims at truth it also involves the use of practically motivated idealizations that qualify theories. The adoption of practical realism is a crucially important step in moving beyond the seemingly intractable stalemate that afflicts the debate concerning realism and anti-realism. In adopting practical realism we can see that the realism/anti-realism debate simply dissolves. As a result, the adoption of practical realism allows for us to get to the real work of articulating a more realistic view of theorizing in the sciences that acknowledges a complex view of the aims of the sciences. So practical realism involves the key recognition of the dual aims of scientific theorizing and thus allows for us to explore how this dualistic notion of the aims of science impacts important issues in the philosophy of science like explanation and confirmation. More specifically, practical realism raises all sorts of interesting questions about scientific representation, degrees of idealization, scientific progress, etc. In this particular paper a novel concept of scientific progress consonant with practical realism will be explicated. This notion of scientific progress will be framed in terms of Shaffer’s (2012) contextualist theory of explanation and some of its most important implications will be explored. More specifically the concepts of partial explanation and partial understanding involved in this notion of progress are investigated. Cartwright, N. (1983). How the Laws of Physics Lie. New York: Oxford University Press. Shaffer, M. (2012). Counterfactuals and Scientific Realism. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan.

13) Juan Manuel Vila Pérez – A Critique of Scientific Pluralism – The Case For QM

Scientifically speaking, Quantum Mechanics (QM) is the most successful theory ever made. Philosophically speaking, however, it is the most controversial. Its basic principles seem to contravene our deepest intuitions about reality, which are most patently exhibited in the metaphysical commitments of Classical Mechanics (CM). In the last century many attempts to rejoin CM and QM have taken place, like Bohr’s Kantian defense of the priority of classical concepts (Bohr, 1927) or Bohm’s search for a classical limit trough the quantum potential ‘R’ (Bohm, 1952). However, most interpretations suffer from one of two main serious difficulties: either they are thought to be too restrictive and incapable of appreciating the revolutionary features of QM, or else they are thought to be too implausible given the strange ontological commitments required by the interpretation.

2 See Shaffer 2012.

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Scientific Pluralism (SP) has become an attractive middle ground between these two poles. A pluralist stance respects the idiosyncratic features of each theory, while at the same time restricts their ontology to what is required by the mathematical formalism. An important historical example of SP in Quantum Physics can be found in Werner Heisenberg’s book Physics and Philosophy (1958). According to Heisenberg, the history of physics is a succession of theories, were each theory is a closed system [abgeschlossene System]. A closed system is “a system of axioms and definitions which can be expressed consistently by a mathematical scheme” (Heisenberg 1958, p. 92). In each system, the concepts are represented by symbols which in turn are related by a set of equations, and the resulting “theory” is thought to be “an eternal structure of nature, depending neither on a particular space nor on particular time” (Ibid. p. 93). Given this systemic closure, each theory generates its own concept of “reality”, whose validity is not restricted by other theories. After Heisenberg, many sophisticated versions of SP have been recently proposed (Krause 2000, Longino 2002, Chang 2007). Most of these versions engage critically with Heisenberg’s notion of “closed system”. However, they all share a common assumption which stems directly from Heisenberg’s treatment of physical theories, and has been barely discussed. I will call this assumption the “Comprehension Thesis” (CT). According to the Comprehension Thesis (CT), to “understand” or “comprehend” something is to relate a multiplicity of elements trough a finite number of non-arbitrary relations. The local version of this thesis is that each theory must be internally comprehended. This is typically achieved through the fixation of the referents of some of the theory’s symbols. The symbols are then related to non-symbolic items trough what I call “Principle of Referential Persistence” (PRP). A symbol Ψ persistently refers to an item of the world E iff Ψ refers to E in every occurrence of Ψ. When each symbol becomes “attached” to its referent, the resulting articulation constitutes the ontology of each theory. Although defenders of SP typically ascribe to CT and PRP, the Pluralist denies any global application of CT, since this would imply an inter-theoretical reduction of the many languages, methods and metaphysical commitments into one total theory (or ToE), and the rejection of such a theory is precisely the starting point of any scientific pluralism. The aim of this paper is to show how this selected use of CT is unwarranted. Since SP lacks any alternative conception of “comprehension” for global cases, any restriction of CT to the local case shows itself to be arbitrary. As the argument develops, it will be suggested that the main reason for this internal weakness is that SP upholds, along with Scientific Realism, a representational conception of scientific theories according to which a theory is a description of the physical reality. This commitment is obviously manifested in the maintenance of PRP. It will be argued that the central problem with Scientific Pluralism is that its restriction of CT is incompatible with its own representational conception of scientific theories. So the Pluralist must choose: either she abandons CT altogether or she fully applies it. If she chooses the former option, it is impossible to distinguish a scientific pluralism from a instrumentalist account of scientific theories, since the problem of comprehending those theories as being about something would be completely obliterated. If, on the other hand, she chooses the latter alternative, then she is confronted with a reductive account of physical theories, since her holding of PRP makes it impossible to avoid a Theory of Everything. As a conclusion, I suggest that the only viable way to preserve scientific realism and avoid a reductive account of global comprehension is to abandon PRP in favor of a more dynamic account of the way in which scientific theories relate to the physical world.

14) Danielle Macbeth – Revolution and Realism?

In the seventeenth century the practice of mathematics was fundamentally transformed; and this transformed mathematics led in turn to a transformed practice of physics. It was at the time very natural to think that although we had in the past gotten things wildly wrong—fire does not want to go up, the sun does not revolve around the earth, things are not really colored, or flavored, or sounding—now we had things right. Such thinking cannot survive a second revolutionary transformation such as occurred in mathematical practice in the nineteenth century and in the practice of physics in the twentieth. The fact that, in principle, this second revolution could be followed by a third, then a fourth, and so on, provides grounds for skepticism about the truth of our scientific theories; it suggests that we have no good grounds for scientific realism. But if one considers these two revolutions more closely, a very different picture begins to emerge. As is especially clear in the case of the mathematical revolutions that underwrite those in physics, the two revolutions are essentially different. Instead of “one damn thing after another”, we see in these two revolutions an organic growth of knowledge that provides grounds for a very robust form of scientific realism. This new realism, we will see, is structuralist, but it is also interestingly different from what has come to be known as structural realism. Ancient Greek mathematical practice, like ancient thought generally, is constitutively object oriented. It studies numbers of various sorts, for instance, primes, and the odd and the even, where a number is to be understood as a collection of units; and it studies geometrical figures, triangles, circles, and so on. By the end of the first

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millennium, the positional system of Arabic numeration together with its algorithms for performing calculations had been developed as a form of paper-and-pencil reasoning to rival calculating on a counting board. And Viète in the sixteenth century devised a symbolic notation suitable for algebraic manipulations. But this notation, like Arabic numeration, was taken to have only an instrumental value. Until the work of Descartes, the basic intellectual orientation remained that of the ancient Greeks; it was Descartes who learned to read the symbolism of arithmetic and algebra as a fully meaningful language, albeit one of a radically new sort. And he did so through a metamorphosis in his most basic understanding of space and spatial objects. Hitherto conceived as the relative locations of objects, space was now, through a kind of figure/ground gestalt switch, to be conceived as an antecedently given whole within which objects might (but need not) be placed, each independent of all the others. Mathematics, from being about objects, was now to be conceived as a science of relations among arbitrary quantities as expressed in equations. These equations made possible in turn the modern notion of a law of nature, in particular, Newton’s laws of motion. Early modern Newtonian science offered a view of reality that was to replace our now-seemingly naïve everyday, sensory view of things. That naïve view is wrong, a mere appearance of things to creatures like us; the view afforded by the exact sciences is right, a picture of how things actually are. The kinetic theory of gases provides a nice illustration of the idea: what appears to us as the heat, pressure, and expansion of a gas really is nothing more than the increasing or decreasing motions of tiny particles. Kant then adds a further twist to this: our knowledge of mathematical and physical reality is ineluctably shaped by the forms of our sensibility and understanding. We cannot, even through our most successful scientific theories, know things as they are in themselves. Then, in the nineteenth century, mathematical practice was again transformed to become, as it remains today, a practice of deductive reasoning from concepts. And this transformation, by contrast with that of the seventeenth century, constitutes a rebirth of mathematics as a whole. The aspirations of early modernity have finally been fully realized: mathematics is revealed to be, has become, a purely rational enterprise. Although reason in its first appearance, say, in ancient Greek mathematical practice, cannot constitute a power of knowing—as, for example, perception is a power of knowing (we can, in some instances, just see how things are)—reason can, over the course of history, through radical transformations in our forms of mathematical practice, become such a power. Astonishing though it must at first seem, deductive reasoning from concepts can extend one’s knowledge in contemporary mathematical practice. This new, purely rational and conceptual mathematics has enabled in turn a new form of fundamental physics that does not merely use mathematics as, say, Newton’s physics does, but instead simply is mathematics. There is no physical correlate. And because this mathematics is purely rational, because it has been purged of all sensory content, it is correct to say that the aspects of reality it reveals—in special and general relativity and in quantum mechanics—is maximally objective, the same for all rational beings. This, then, is a new form of scientific realism, one that is structuralist without being quite what is generally meant by structural realism. What it shows is that far from being incompatible with scientific realism, revolutions in the practice of science can be constitutive of scientific realism.

15) Nora Berenstain – Scientific Realism and the Commitment to Modality, Mathematics, and Metaphysical Dependence

I show why the scientific realist must be committed to an objective, metaphysically robust account of the modal structure of the physical world. I argue against Humean regularity theory on the grounds it is incompatible with scientific realism and fails to be naturalistically motivated. I specifically address the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view, which states that laws of nature are those regularities that feature as axioms or theorems in the best deductive system describing our universe. This view, also known as sophisticated Humeanism, is broadly incompatible with scientific realism as it can offer no explanation of the success of inductive inference. The Humean about laws of nature denies the existence of natural necessity. Since the Humean cannot explain why the regularities in our world continue to hold from moment to moment, she cannot explain why inductive inference should be a successful method of investigation. This does not sit well from the perspective of a scientific realist. One of the driving motivations behind scientific realism is the thought that there must be an explanation for the success of science. The use of induction is a cornerstone of scientific theorizing and investigation. If the Humean cannot offer an explanation of the success of induction, neither can she offer an explanation of the success of science. Thus the scientific realist must embrace a robust view of physical modality that involves natural necessity. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability are four notions that feature prominently in scientific explanation, and each one is prima facie a modal notion. These modal properties are necessary to make sense of our best scientific theories, and scientific realists cannot do without them. Structural realists in the vein of Ladyman and Ross [2007] sometimes suggest that this modal structure is primitive. I offer a new account in which the modal structure of the physical world is metaphysically dependent upon mathematical structure. The argument proceeds by way of analogy between the no-miracles argument for scientific realism about unobservable entities and the indispensability argument for realism about mathematical entities. The no-miracles

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argument shows that we must be committed to unobservable or theoretical entities if we are to account for science’s ability to explain and predict novel phenomena. Colyvan’s [2001] indispensability argument and cases supporting it (such as Baker [2005]) show that facts about mathematical structures and relations can also explain and predict features of the physical world. Just as no-miracles is taken to be an argument not just for theoretical entities themselves but for a dependence relation (usually causal) between the theoretical entities and the observable phenomena they explain, the indispensability argument must similarly be taken to be an argument for a dependence relation between explanans and explanandum. This relation between explanans and explanandum is what I take to be the relation of metaphysical dependence. I argue that the modal structure of the physical world is derived from mathematical structure. The modal properties of a physical system, such as limits on what values its physical quantities can take, derive from the underlying mathematical structure that the system instantiates or approximates. Rather than taking mathematics to merely usefully model physical systems, we should take mathematical structures to determine the modal properties of these systems. In other words, the modal structure of a physical system is metaphysically dependent on the system’s underlying mathematical structure. The metaphysical-dependence view of physical modality paves the way for a unified account of modal and mathematical epistemology. It illuminates the nature of necessity in the natural world. And it accounts for the incredibly successful applications of mathematics to empirical phenomena when it comes to explanation and novel prediction. Further, once we understand that modal physical properties are grounded in properties of mathematical structures, the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences no longer borders on the mysterious. Thus, the view provides a natural answer to the applicability problem. I show this account of the applicability of mathematics to empirical science to be superior to those put forth by Pincock [2004] and Bueno and Colyvan [2011].

16) John Collier – Information Can Preserve Structure across Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerbend introduced the issue of semantic incommensurability across major theoretic changes that we call scientific revolutions, though Hanson originated the problem. Feyerabend recognized that the problem of semantic comparability arose because of problems in empiricism itself. I argue that the problem arises from two widely held assumptions. The first is Peirce's criterion of meaning according to which any difference in meaning must make a difference to possible experience. This is a sort of positivism, but it is not verificationist. The second assumption is the verificationist view that the meaning of any statement is given by the conditions under which it can be taken to be verified. Together these assumptions entail the infamous Quine-Duhem Thesis that any two theories have extensions that are equally compatible with the evidence. This leads less directly to Kuhn's Incommensurability Thesis, that two theories can be both incompatible and semantically incommensurate, notoriously across major "scientific revolutions", undermining the idea of cumulative progress in science. Kuhn’s own position is notoriously ambiguous, supporting both antirealism and what might be called sequential idealism. In “Second Thoughts on Paradigms” he clarified his ideas and placed the problem on incompatible classifications that have no clear common ground. The problem for the progressive realist, then, is to find some way to establish a common ground for comparison of classes. One of the more promising attempts at resolution is the Structuralist Approach to Theories, in which theories are model theoretic structures isomorphic to parts of the world. It divides theories into the core theory, a set of models with the laws dropped out but retaining the classes, and a set of observational models without any of the apparatus of the theory. Unfortunately the approach to intertheoretic reduction advocated was shown fairly early to permit incommensurability because of the indeterminacy of isomorphism across models. Further restrictions are required. I will argue that a resolution using the theory of Information Flow developed by Jon Barwise and Jerry Seligman can provide the extra restrictions, allowing even incommensurate theories to share evidence. A consequence of this perspective is that the meaning issue is a red herring. Another is the rejection of verificationism, which forces the meaning issue to the fore, as noted above. Kuhn argued in his later work that the problem was due to incommensurable classifications across different theoretical contexts, with no common context to provide a common semantic ground. If we assume that both an earlier theory and a later one, or two competing theories in general, share a common basis of observational instances, then the problem is that the two theories classify the common instances differently. Barwise and Seligman’s approach to information flow assumes that we have two classifications of tokens (instances) which bear a relation that has the characteristics of what they call an “infomorphism”. If an infomorphism holds, then we can talk of an information flow from one classification to the other (though the reverse need not be true). An infomorphism is a pair f of functions ‹f∧, f∨› between two classifications A and C, one from the set of objects used to classify A to the set of objects used to classify C, and the other from C to A, such that the biconditional relating the second function to the inverse of the first function holds for all tokens c of C and all types of A, f∨(c) ╞A α if and only if c╞C f∧( α). The biconditional is called the fundamental property of infomorphisms. Here╞A is the classification by the classes in A of the instances (tokens) of the classes. The problem of information flow across theoretical models through their empirical

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instances, I will argue, is exactly the problem of semantically comparing the theories, based on Kuhn’s idea that the problem is one of classification. The fact that the two theories to be compared have the same empirical instances (though perhaps under different classifications and thus names) helps considerably, but it does not solve the problem of intertheortic semantic comparison. I will set some desiderata for completing the requirements for an infomorphism across theoretical models, and I will argue that they can be satisfied. I will further argue that unless they are satisfied, incommensurability is a very real phenomenon that cannot be resolved by strictly empiricist means. My approach is in the spirit of signs in the semiotics of C.S.Peirce.

17) Juha Saatsi – Pessimistic induction and realist recipes: a reassessment

Much of the scientific realism debate has focused on responding to a fa- miliar challenge from the history of science: arguably history provides evid- ence against the realist notion that we have good scientific evidence for the ‘approximate’ or ‘partial’ truth of our current best theories. Realist responses to this ‘pessimistic induction’ are multifarious in their letter, but unified in their spirit: while admitting that our current best theories clearly fall short of being true simpliciter most realists have aimed to provide a recipe for characterising the truth-content of our current theories. (Or, more broadly, characterising a uniform sense in which well-confimed theories ‘latch onto’ unobservable reality.) These realist responses exemplify the spirit of (what I call) ‘recipe-realism’. The recipe-realist response to pessimistic induction has led to structural realism and other such positions that are sweeping and monolithic in their outlook. In the spirit of recipe-realism structural realism, for example, puts forward a unified notion of structure as capturing realist commitments across a wide range of disciplines and areas of scientific theorising. I will criticise structural realism and other monolithic realist positions by questioning the spirit of recipe-realism altogether. I will argue that in response to the histor- ical challenge the realist should aim to characterise realist commitments via exemplars instead of aiming to pin down some uniformly applicable recipe. I will argue that realists should admit a variety of different kinds of realist explanations of empirical success and predictive accuracy in order to prop- erly capture not only the history of science, but also features of idealised and inconsistent models. The commonly held idea that a realist must provide a prospectively applicable recipe for capturing realist commitments is a fool’s errand; the best we can do, I will argue, is to provide a range of exemplars accompanied with an associated elucidation of the sense in which a given exemplar involves a realist explanation of empirical success. The paper begins by exploring recipe-realism and its limits as a response to the challenge from the history of science (and from idealised and incon- sistent theories and models, more broadly). I then argue that recipe realism can at best be bought for the price of an unacceptable degree of ambiguity in realist commitments. Accepting that realists should forgo the spirit of re- cipe realism, I will argue that they should focus instead—in a more piecemeal way—on characterising and studying in detail exemplar cases, such as the transition from Newtonian gravity to general relativity, or the transition from classical to quantum physics. I will discuss one or both of these cases in suf- ficient detail to illustrate the philosophical issues at stake. I will explain why the exemplar-response to the historical challenge is necessarily piecemeal by virtue of acknowledging that any given exemplar has a limited domain of ap- plicability: a realist explanation of the empirical success of Newtonian grav- ity, for example, only supports realism about theorising that is suitably similar to this exemplar. By the same token, the realist can accept that there can be exemplars of non-realist explanations of empirical success. Those also have a limited domain of applicability: they only support anti-realism about theor- ising that is sufficiently similar to them. (I illustrate this with the Kirchhoff case discussed in Saatsi and Vickers 2011.) A also discuss some challenges to the exemplar approach to realism. The biggest challenge is to specify what a ‘realist explanation of success’ can amount to. I argue that we can appeal to intuitions and clear example cases to get started on this.

18) Mario Alai – Deployment vs. discriminatory realism

For Gerald Doppelt (2005, 2007) “deployment” realism cannot withstand the pessimistic meta-induction and meta-modus tollens objections, because the partial truth of discarded theories is refuted by historical counterexamples. Besides, deployment realism explains predictive success, but not explanatory success. Doppelt, instead, proposes a version of realism supposedly explaining also explanatory success, according to which old discarded theories are completely false, and best current theories completely true. I counter that (I) deployment realism can resist historical counterexamples; (II) explaining explanatory success does not add much to explaining novel predictions; (III) a realism confined to current theories is implausible, and easily defeated by the pessimistic meta-induction.

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(I) Resisting the meta-modus tollens Laudan (1981) and Lyons (2002) argued that some radically false theories in the past had predictive success; so, predictive success does not warrant truth. Psillos replied that: (1) those predictions were not novel; (2) some successful but discarded theories were partly true; (3) the causal theory of reference shows that those theories referred to real entities. Doppelt criticizes these replies. Elsewhere I countered Lyons’ objections, now I rebut Doppelt’s criticisms: (1) Novelty Doppelt’s objections to (1): (i) Temporal novelty is irrelevant. My rejoinder: but use novelty is necessary to warrant belief in truth. (ii) Naturalism requires that scientific realism is evaluated as scientific theories. So, since realism does not make novel predictions, this should not be a requirement for theories either. My rejoinder: (b) moderate naturalism does not hold that realism is, but that it is like, a scientific theory; (b) radical naturalism is implausible. (iii) Some false theories were explanatorily successful, i.e., their account of data was simple, consilient, unifying, complete, of broad scope, plausible, consistent with background knowledge, etc. So, success is not evidence of truth. My rejoinder: theoretical virtues alone, without novel predictions, cannot warrant truth. So, realists are entitled to discard theoretically virtuous but predictively ineffective theories. (2) Partial truth For deployment realism caloric, ether, etc., were inessential to the novel predictions made by their theories. Doppelt objects that they were necessary to explanatory success, i.e. to the simplicity, consilience, …, etc., of those theories. My rejoinder: no, because they were not part of the equally (or more) virtuous theories which superseded them preserving their true assumptions. (3) Referential continuity For Psillos empty terms (e.g.‘ether’) involved in novel predictions referred to real entities (e.g., the electromagnetic field) playing the same causal role. Doppelt objects that the properties of ether not shared by the electromagnetic field were essential to make the ether theory virtuous. My rejoinder: truth is not necessary to explain virtuosity, only to explain novel predictions. (II) What realism must explain and how According to Doppelt realism should explain why predictively successful theories are also simple, consilient, …, etc. Truth is not a sufficient explanation, for it does not entail those virtues. We also need the “metaphysical” assumption that “nature itself is simple, consilient, … etc.” I agree, but notice that (i) this assumption is needed as part of the explanans in the realist inference to the best explanation, so it is not a further premise but an additional conclusion; (ii) it is already implicit in the claim that theories are true; (iii) the full-blown structure of the realist argument is: Why scientists succeed in making novel predictions? Because Assumption1: scientists find partly true and heuristically fruitful theories. Isn’t finding true and fruitful theories more “miraculous” than just finding empirically adequate theories? No, if Assumption2: scientific method is truth-conducive and heuristically effective (Maher 1988, White 2003). But why is scientific method truth-conducive and heuristically effective? because Assumption3: it reconstructs unobservable structures by analogy, abduction and inductive extrapolation; these inferences work if nature is simple, symmetrical, …, etc; and nature actually is simple, symmetrical, etc. Assumptions 1-3 are all required to explain novel predictions, and this already explains explanatory success as well. (III) The pessimistic meta-induction and apartheid realism The pessimistic meta-induction goes as follows: past successful theories were completely wrong; there is no radical methodological difference between past and present theories; therefore, current and future successful theories will also turn out completely wrong. Deployment realism rejects premise (1). For Doppelt there is no truth in discarded theories, so he rather rejects (2): current theories are radically better than past ones, since they are much more confirmed and fulfil much higher standards. So, while for deployment realism both past and present theories are partly true, for Doppelt past theories are completely false, and current most-successful-and-best-established (MSBE) theories are completely (though only approximately) true. He doesn’t explicitly say “completely true”, but he obviously thinks so, since he doesn’t countenance partial falsity as an explanation of why current theories occasionally fail.

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But this form of “apartheid” raises many problems: (1) what explains the novel predictions of past theories, if not their partial truth? For Doppelt, their theoretical virtues. But I argue that this is impossible. (2) Why current theories occasionally fail? His only option is denying that some current theories are MSBE: e.g., Quantum Mechanics is not best-established, for it lacks internal coherence, intuitive plausibility, etc., and it is incompatible with Relativity. But then, even Relativity is not best-established, since it is incompatible with Quantum Mechanics. Paradoxically, therefore, Doppelt is not committed even to the partial truth of our two best physical theories. (3) Claiming that MSBE theories are completely true flies in the face of fallibilism. (4) Many past theories fulfilling the highest contemporary standards were later superseded. Why shouldn’t current MSBE theories be discarded too? the pessimistic meta-induction is back! Doppelt grants that our belief in the truth of current MSBE theories can be defeated in the future. But then we should expect that, sooner or later, any best theory is rejected. And since for Doppelt rejected theories are completely false, it follows that we will never know any truth! So, his distinction between past false theories and present true ones collapses into radical antirealism. Arguing that both past and present theories are partly true remains the best strategy for realists.

19) Gauvain Leconte – Predictive success, partial truth and skeptical realism

A common defense for scientific realism since Musgrave’s and Leplin’s works (Musgrave 1988; Leplin 1997) is to argue that the truth of our scientific theories is the best explanation of their predictive success, i.e. their capacity to make novel predictions. Yet, in order to resist Laudan’s pessimistic induction (Laudan 1981), these defense must also explain why past theories enjoyed predictive success but are now considered as false. Most of scientific realists, such as Worrall (Worrall 1989a, 120), Kitcher (Kitcher 1993, 140), Psillos (Psillos 1999, 108) or Chakravartty (Chakravartty 2007, 45) reply that these past theories were not completely true or false but approximately or partially true, and only their true aspects are still part of our current scientific theories. Yet, for this reply to be effective, realists must give an independent criterion or procedure to sort out the true parts of a theory from the others, otherwise the notion of partial truth is just an ad hoc evasion from the pessimist induction. Furthermore, the different versions of scientific realism, such as Worrall’s structural realism, Psillos’ orthodox scientific realism or Chakravartty’s semirealism, differ precisely on which parts of theories must be considered as ontologically committing. The elaboration of such a procedure is therefore crucial not only to defend scientific realism, but also to choose among the many versions of this position. This procedure is often based on an indispensability argument: if the truth of a theory is the best explanation of its predictive success, the parts of a theory which are indispensable to its predictive success must be true. While a lot of recent debates and critics of scientific realism have focused on the possibility to discriminate between false and approximately true theories on the basis of their predictive success (Stanford 2000; Held 2011; Cevolani et Tambolo 2013), few has been said about the possibility to use predictive success as a criterion to identify, inside partially true theories, those parts worthy of belief. In my paper, I present two objections to the indispensability argument and to this use of predictive success. These objections come from the examination of the derivation of novel predictions from a theory and rely on the study of a paradigmatic case: the prediction, from Fresnel’s wave theory of light, of a white spot in the center of the shadow of a circular object (Worrall 1989b; Psillos 1995). The first objection is that the indispensability argument is too liberal. The prediction of the white spot, as it is exposed by Fresnel in one of the appendix to his Mémoire of 1819 (Fresnel 1866, 365‑372), implies several false assumptions and idealizations with no physical meaning, such as the hypothesis of an infinite radius of an aperture or the absolute velocity of the particle of ether. Many authors have underlined the role of fictions in explanation and explanatory models (Batterman 2001; Cartwright 2004; Suárez 2008; Mäki 2011; Bokulich 2012). The white spot example suggests that fictions are equally important in deriving novel prediction and building predictive models. Then, if a lot of hypotheses, which are clearly idealizations or false simplifications, are necessary to the derivation of novel predictions, then false parts of theories are also indispensable to their predictive success. This objection may be avoided by drawing a distinction between the central and auxiliary hypotheses of a theory. However, I show that if central hypotheses are only defined as the ones which were maintained in posterior theories, this distinction is guilty of post hoc rationalization, and is of little use to determine which aspects of our current theories are true. But if we use another distinction between central and auxiliary hypotheses, we are led back to the initial problem of distinguishing between the different aspects of a theory, and we fall into a vicious circle. The second objection is that it is often possible to predict the same phenomena by different predictive processes, which do not use the same parts of a given theory. The prediction of the white spot was first derived by Poisson from Fresnel’s integrals; but Fresnel, in his appendix, offers “a simpler solution [to the problem of the shadow of a circular object] without using the integrals I have used in the preceding Mémoire to compute the other phenomena

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of diffraction.” (Fresnel 1866, 365) In other words, there are different ways to predict a phenomenon within the same theory, and the set of the “indispensable elements” for predictive success is not uniquely determined. I show that one cannot argue that we are ontologically committed only toward the common elements used to make the two predictions of the same phenomena, because these elements were not retained in posterior theories such as Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. Moreover, these elements constitute a very small part of the overall theory: the realist position based on them would be so thin that it would be even more deflationist than Saatsi ‘s “minimal explanatory realism” (Saatsi 2005). In the last part of the paper, I give other examples from various fields of empirical sciences of predictions of the same phenomenon which use different parts of the same theory. I claim that this fact is compatible with (and makes a good case for) skeptical realism. For the skeptical realist, scientific successes inclines us to believe that a theory is partially true, but we cannot discriminate between the parts of this theory which are indeed true and the ones which are mere useful fictions. In other words, predictive success may tell us that it is very probable that some parts of our scientific theories are true, but, as a Mafioso arrested by the police, remains silent on the name of these parts. References Batterman, Robert. 2001. The Devil in the Details. Oxford University Press. Bokulich, Alisa. 2012. « Distinguishing Explanatory from Nonexplanatory Fictions ». Philosophy of Science 79 (5): 725‑37. Cartwright, Nancy. 2004. « From Causation To Explanation and Back ». In The Future for Philosophy, 230‑45. Oxford University Press. Cevolani, Gustavo, et Luca Tambolo. 2013. « Truth may not explain predictive success, but truthlikeness does ». Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. Chakravartty, Anjan. 2007. A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable. Cambridge University Press. Fresnel, Augustin Jean. 1866. Oeuvres complètes d’Augustin Fresnel. Édité par Henri Hureau de Senarmont et Émile Verdet. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale. Held, C. 2011. « Truth Does Not Explain Predictive Success ». Analysis 71 (2): 232‑34. Kitcher, Philip. 1993. « The Advancement of Science-Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions ». Oxford University Press 1. Laudan, Larry. 1981. « A Confutation of Convergent Realism ». Philosophy of Science 48 (1): 19‑49. Leplin, Jarrett. 1997. A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism. Oxford University Press. Mäki, Uskali. 2011. « The Truth of False Idealizations in Modeling ». In Models, Simulations, and Representations. Routledge. Musgrave, Alan. 1988. « The ultimate argument for scientific realism ». In Relativism and realism in science, 229‑52. Springer. Psillos, Stathis. 1995. « Is Structural Realism the Best of Both Worlds? » Dialectica 49 (1): 15‑46. ———. 1999. Scientific realism: How science tracks truth. Routledge. Saatsi, Juha. 2005. « Reconsidering the Fresnel–Maxwell Theory Shift: How the Realist Can Have Her Cake and EAT It Too ». Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 36 (3): 509‑38. Stanford, P. Kyle. 2000. « An Antirealist Explanation of the Success of Science ». Philosophy of Science 67 (2): 266‑84. Suárez, Mauricio (dir.). 2008. Fictions in science: Philosophical essays on modeling and idealization. Routledge. Worrall, John. 1989a. « Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds? » Dialectica 43 (1-2): 99‑124. ———. 1989b. « Fresnel, Poisson and the white spot: the role of successful predictions in the acceptance of scientific theories ». In The Uses of Experiment, Studies in the natural sciences, David Gooding, Trevor Pinch, et Simon Schaffer, 135‑157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20) Sreekumar Jayadevan – Does History of Science Underdetermine the Scientific Realism Debate? A Metaphilosophical Perspective

It is often argued that historical evidence intellectually compels us to organize our philosophical temperament against scientific realism. This issue has been one of the subject matters of the scientific realism debate for more than two decades. An outpouring of historical studies happened in the recent years as different factions developed their own explanations as to what is retained across theory-change. I evaluate the development of the scientific realism debate in the recent two decades from a metaphilosophical perspective. I argue along the lines of Juha Saatsi (2011) that current explorations in history of science are not enough to vindicate any single position. Later, I build upon this claim that there is a sense in which, we may declare that history of science underdetermines the scientific realism debate. This is because, in the debate, philosophical positions like

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structural realism and scientific realism couch historical case studies by narratives of their own. These narratives appear to be lending support to the respective positions in the debate. In order to show this, firstly, I explore the ways in which Stathis Psillos (1999) and James Ladyman (2011) interpret the Stahl-Lavoisier episode of eighteenth century chemistry. Secondly, I investigate the attempts of Anjan Chakravartty (2007) and John Worrall (1989) where they develop their own unique readings of the Fresnel-Maxwell episode in nineteenth century optics. I show from the analysis of these two episodes that: The all-inclusive nature of interpretations of certain notions ingrained in the debate ( e.g. 'structure') often affect the evenness of philosophical positions. Notions like ‘abstract/concrete structure’ and ‘entities’, which are the backbones of many realist and quasi-realist positions get loosely interpreted over history of science. Scientific realism (the version defended by Psillos) mostly works well as a position about current science consisting of matured and predictively successful theories. Scientific realism does not possess the resources to pin- point truth bearing constituents of past theories even with Psillos’ naturalistic approach of leaving the task to the current practicing scientists. Disparate historical episodes do not uniformly support any single philosophical position in the debate. That is, all of history of science does not reflect a uniform epistemic attitude. Therefore, the task at hand does not end here. The lack of sufficient historical evidence in favor of any position compels us to think against a uniform epistemic attitude across science. We may entertain the view that different philosophical ideals apply in different historical phases- a hint found in the works of David Pappineau (1996), Juha Saatsi (2011) and Uskali Mäki (2005). I introduce the notion of an ‘epistemic indicator’, which is a domain specific virtue giving warrant to the belief in individual philosophical positions. For example, notions like ‘intervention’ and ‘detection’ in the case of early nineteenth century physics (favoring entity realism and semirealism) and abstract ‘structural retention’ in nineteenth century optics (favoring epistemic structural realism). These domain specific virtues are epistemic indicators for particular historical phases. The epistemic indicator drives different epistemic attitudes conducive for different phases of science. Revealing these epistemic indicators in historical cases is the key in shaping a non-uniform pluralistic epistemic attitude to past and present science. Thus, I conclude by arguing that a metaphilosophical angle into the scientific realism debate directs us to be pluralists in our philosophical temperament about scientific knowledge. The pluralism can be asserted by combing history of science where unique epistemic indicators are at play lending support to different positions. There are four parts in this paper. In part one, I outline the historical trajectory of metaphilosophical perspectives in the debate starting from the works of Alison Wylie (1986). I also argue as to why the genre of metaphilosophy within general philosophy of science is pivotal in evaluating the overall progress of the debate in the last two decades. In part two, I elaborate some of the recent attempts by thinkers who interpret specific phases of history of science in favor of their positions (especially Psillos, Ladyman, Worrall and Chakravartty). In part three, the inadequacy of historical evidence in lending support to individual positions as well as the all- inclusive nature of interpretations of philosophical notions are scrutinized. Here, I elaborate the reasons as to why we should think that history of science underdetermines the scientific realism debate. In part four, I introduce the notion of epistemic indicators with which, a pluralistic epistemic attitude can be endorsed on scientific knowledge. Selected Bibliography Chakravartty, Anjan. (2007) A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism: Knowing the Unobservable, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ladyman, James. (2011) Structural realism versus standard scientific realism: The Case of Phlogiston and Dephlogisticated Air. Synthese 180(2): 87-101. Maki Uskali (2005) ‘Reglobalizing Realism by Going Local or (How) Should our Formulations of Scientific Realism be informed about the Sciences’. Erkenntnis 63: 231–251. Papineau, David (Ed.) (1996). Introduction. In Papineau, D., editor, The Philosophy of Science, chapter 1,. London: Oxford University Press. 1–21. Psillos, Stathis. (1999) Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth, New York: Routledge. Saatsi, Juha (2011) 'Scientic Realism and Historical Evidence: Shortcomings of the Current State of Debate', Vol 1, EPSA Proceedings, Springer, 329-340. Worrall, John. (1989) ‘Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?’, Dialectica 43: 99-124. Wylie, Alison. (1986), ‘Arguments for Scientific Realism: The Ascending Spiral’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 23: 287–298.

21) Hennie Lötter – Thinking anew about truth in scientific realism

In response to Laudan’s famous challenge in his article “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”, scientific realists have developed sophisticated theories of reference, critically examined many examples of discarded scientific theories to determine which kind of elements were transferred to the new, replacement theories, developed ideas about the characteristics of mature scientific theories, and checked the representativeness of Laudan’s examples

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and the plausibility of his interpretations thereof. However, the theory of what truth is seems to have been least successfully revised in the light of the Laudan’s critique, although his critique on the theory on the theory of truth in use by the scientific realists merely stated that the “notion of approximate truth is presently too vague to permit one to judge whether a theory consisting entirely of approximately true laws would be empirically successful” (Laudan 1981: 47). This lack of a fundamental revision is surprising in the light of the central role of the concept of truth in claims made by scientific realists. On the no-miracles account of realism, truth guarantees and explains the success of science, or alternatively, the success of science can only be understood in the light of its truth. My central claim is that [i] the current general scientific realist understanding of truth is incomplete, and obscures core features of how science functions as part of how humans cognitively engage with the world, and [ii] this view of truth is out of sync with some exciting new and older theories of truth recently developed – e.g. the works of Davidson, Sher, Lynch, and Nozick. In the proposed paper I will present a new theory of truth more appropriate and congenial to the general model of science found in scientific realism. An alternative theory of truth must be developed in very specific ways. Both Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch emphasize that a theory of truth must use truisms (Lynch) or platitudes (Wright) about truth as fundamental building blocks to guide the development of a theory. Although such a starting point is important, more must be done. The strategy of reflective equilibrium, used by the political philosopher John Rawls to design his high impact theory of justice, seems particularly apt in this case. The general intuitions [I prefer this word to truisms or platitudes] about truth and the best philosophical explanations thereof must be worked into a new theory and then a to-and-fro dialogue between intuitions and theory must trim and prioritise elements in the theory to ensure maximum descriptive and explanatory power of those features of human life deeply influenced by the concept of truth. In addition, the theory must be tested by means of various key examples from the history of science to examine its explanatory value and problem-solving ability. In developing my theory of truth, I use tools and ‘building blocks’ emerging from recent philosophical work that can enable us to design a more satisfying theory of truth with greater explanatory power. Briefly these ‘building blocks’ include the following: The first building block is to be clear what truth is about. For Donald Davidson a theory of truth deals with the “utterances” of language speakers, i.e. what they say and write [Davidson 1990: 309]. Gila Sher judges the main issue of truth as “our disposition to question whether things are as our thoughts say they are” (26). For Davidson the point of having a concept like truth is that it forms “an essential part of the scheme we all necessarily employ for understanding, criticizing, explaining, and predicting thought and action” [Davidson 1990: 282]. In this context truth functions as a “normative concept” that serves as “a fundamental standard of thought” (Sher) Michael Lynch suggests more ‘building blocks’ when he sets out three truisms about truth that ought to guide our theorising, i.e. objectivity [the belief that p is true if, and only if, with respect to the belief that p, things are as they are believed to be” [70]; truth as a norm of belief [it is prima facie correct to believe that p if and only if the proposition that p is true]; and truth as the end of inquiry [“other things being equal, true beliefs are a worthy goal of inquiry”]. Another core requirement of a theory of truth is that it must tell us “how truth is manifested in the different domains of our cognitive life” (19). Sher argues that these aspects of our cognitive lives should also guide the development of a theory of truth: [i] the complexity of the world; [ii] humans’ ambitious project of theoretical knowledge of the world; [iii] the severe limitations of humans’ cognitive capacities; and [iv] the considerable intricacies of humans’ cognitive capacities. She argues for a theory that can accommodate that “we use a variety of routes to reach the world cognitively” and thus claims that “there are multiple routes of correspondence between true cognitions and reality” [6] Sher’s defence of a “composite correspondence theory” of truth that can explain the “substantial correspondence (of one kind or another) between correct cognition and reality” shows the direction one might want to go. In addition, her a neo-Quinean model of knowledge that re-interprets and balances the analytic-synthetic distinction and gives new contents to the centre-periphery distinction might become fundamental building blocks as well. Lynch hints at another building block for a theory of truth when he calls truth a functional property of sentences that supervenes “on a distinct kind of properties”and thus is “multiply realizable” (2009: 69). For him this means that atomic propositions are true when they have “the distinct further property that plays the truth role – manifests truth – for the domain of inquiry to which it belongs” (77). He accommodates truth as a concept with a single meaning through the idea of “a single property being manifested in this way”, and views truth as plural in the sense that “different properties may manifest truth in distinct domains of inquiry” (78). Robert Nozick’s offers ‘building blocks’ in favour of a more epistemic theory of truth. His theory implies that “truth” is a property correct at a specific time but it might be revised later. Truth thus is “tentative” and Nozick thus rejects a timeless idea of truth such that a “fully specified proposition” would have a “fixed and unvarying truth value” Nozick says [2001: 27]. Nozick does not presume that any proposition is “wholly true”, i.e. either a “flat-out success or a total failure”, as he judges beliefs to have “differing degrees of accuracy” [Nozick 2001: 47].

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In my paper I present a new theory of truth through engaging philosophers like Davidson, Sher, Lynch, Nozick and scientific realists like Psillos, Chakravarrty, and Devitt. This comprehensive theory integrates core insights to explain in much finer detail how truth functions as dominating factor in science. C [3]: Selective Realisms

22) Xavi Lanao – Towards a Structuralist Ontology: an Account of Individual Objects

Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) was initially motivated by metaphysical reflections on the nature of the quantum world that imply a fundamental underdetermination about object individuality (French [1989]; French and Krause [1995]). On the basis of this underdetermination, advocates of OSR argued for the incompatibility of an objectoriented ontology with fundamental physics (French and Ladyman [2003]; French [2006]). Since the first explicit formulation of OSR by James Ladyman [1998], several versions of OSR have appeared in the philosophical literature, fundamentally differing in the ontological status assigned to objects. The most radical version of OSR, proposed by Ladyman and French [2003], advocates for the elimination of individual objects from the scientific realist’s ontology, leaving structures as the only fundamental entity. More moderate versions of OSR do not remove objects from their ontology, but reconceptualize them in a structuralist-friendly way. All different versions of OSR, however, coincide in holding that individual objects should not be included in the fundamental realist ontology. However, the radical metaphysical revision proposed by OSR faces several conceptual difficulties that challenge its ontological project. Two kinds of challenges can be differentiated in the literature: what I will call the conceptual coherence challenge and the explanatory fruitfulness challenge. The conceptual coherence challenge casts doubt on the possibility of developing a coherent concept of structure in the absence of objects. This challenge has been presented in the literature in different ways: by pointing out the conceptual contradiction of postulating relations without relata (Psillos [2001]; [2009], ch. 8); by demanding a precise account of the identity conditions of structures, not only as kinds but also as individual instances, without the inclusion of individual objects (Chakravartty [2003], [2007]); or by suggesting that the concept of structure used in OSR collapses into Platonism (Cao [2003]; Psillos [2009], ch. 8). The explanatory fruitfulness challenge questions whether OSR can successfully explain central features of scientific activity. Chakravartty ([2007], sec. 3.4) and Psillos ([2001]; [2009], ch. 8) argue that objects are central in any explanation of change and causality and, as a result, a purely structuralist ontology will have explanatory gaps. Although efforts have been made to answer these challenges, the answers given have mostly been developed as responses to particular criticisms and they are partial and scattered; there has been little systematic effort to develop a comprehensive structuralist ontology. In this paper, I take a first step towards developing a comprehensive structuralist metaphysics. In particular, I will focus on providing the conceptual tools that allow the construction of an account of individual objects within the structuralist framework. A precise account of individual objects is particularly relevant for clarifying the ontology of OSR because both of the main ontological challenges to OSR stem from the worry that the displacement of objects from the center of the realist ontology results in, at best, an explanatorily inert ontological framework and, at worst, plain incoherence. In order to develop the structuralist ontological framework, I build on the conceptual and formal apparatus of L.A. Paul’s Mereological Bundle Theory (see Paul [2005], [2006], [2012], and more recently her “A One Category Ontology”). The aim of Paul’s ontological project is to maximize ontological parsimony by showing that properties suffice for building up the whole structure of the world without the need of any further ontological categories. Thus, the whole world is built from a single fundamental category — properties— by a single fundamental building relation —mereological composition. I adapt Paul’s general ontological framework to give an account of individual objects in terms of structural relations. My account of individual objects can be considered a version of the bundle theory, which takes objects as bundles of relations in the following sense: Structuralist Bundle Theory (SBT): For any object x, there is a set of relations S such that (i) x instantiates S, and (ii) x is fully mereologically composed of S. Although this definition is just the bare bones of the theory, some brief remarks can be made here to clarify its reach. First, SBT preserves the core ontological proposal of OSR by entailing that relations are more fundamental than individual objects, that is, that objects ontologically depend on relations. Second, SBT takes advantage of the formal apparatus of mereology in defining objects as mereological sums of relations. As a result, the ontological “weight” of objects is completely accounted for by the relations they are composed of; there is nothing over and above these relations. This definition allows OSRists to have an operative concept of individual object without postulating mysterious entities nor accepting any non structural entities in their ontology. Finally, SBT takes relations to be aspects or parts of structures. Relations are taken to be ontologically fundamental and concrete. The concreteness of structures is captured by understanding structures as analogous to n-adic immanent universals, that is, as spatio-temporally located universals that are wholly present in each of their instances.

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The aim of SBT is to provide a general framework for structuralists with which to define individual objects within the boundaries of OSR that helps to clarify certain obscurities of the structuralist ontology. First, SBT can help dispel some worries about the conceptual coherence of OSR. By analyzing structures in terms of a well-understood metaphysical notion, immanent universals, SBT provides a clear notion of object that may help to elucidate how to understand the structuralist framework as a whole. Further, SBT clarifies why objects as relata are usually considered by OSRists as mere heuristic tools that are ontologically irrelevant by clarifying the ontological dependence relation between objects and structures. Finally, SBT can shed some light on the explanatory challenge by providing an account of objects that is able to ground our explanatory practices. By providing a conceptually useful criterion with which to individuate objects, SBT allows OSR to appeal to objects and causal relations as heuristic devices used for explanatory purposes. Although objects are not ontologically fundamental entities, they do correspond to real aspects of reality: the mereological sum of relations they are composed of. SBT captures the ontological insights of OSR in a conceptual framework constituted by well-understood and precise metaphysical concepts, thereby facilitating the dialogue between OSR and other ontological frameworks and making the radical metaphysical revision of OSR more palatable.

23) David William Harker – Whiggish history or the benefit of hindsight?

Successful scientific theories, which have been replaced by radically distinct alternatives, challenge the idea that success is a reliable indicator of (even approximate) truth. Confronted with particular examples of such theories, however, it is often tempting to respond that while the replaced theories were defective in some respects, they nevertheless contained genuine and substantive insights about the domain they purport to describe. Aether theorists may have erred in their assumption that light is propagated through an all-pervading, elastic solid, but much of the work conducted by aether theorists remains central to modern optics. Given this general kind of response, the replacement of successful theories is wholly unsurprising: the theories included mistakes that their successors overcame. The success of such theories – we might suggest - is similarly unsurprising: it is attributable to the fact these theories were true in certain respects. Thus, if we could sensibly attribute success to the parts of replaced theories that have been retained, and dismiss the rejected components as playing no role within that theory’s success, then the inference from success to approximate truth would appear to survive the historically based threat. The suggestion that realist commitments should extend only to certain parts of scientific theories, namely those that are somehow responsible for the successes of that theory, has become known as selective realism. Selective realism requires us to re-assess replaced scientific theories, to establish which constituents contributed to the theory’s success and which did not. One of several widely appreciated challenges for such assessments, however, is to avoid inappropriate reliance on contemporary scientific theories. This is known as the problem of whiggish history. If I use the perspective of contemporary theories both to evaluate which parts of past theories were approximately true and to determine which parts were responsible for the successes of those theories, then the results are likely to converge. However, that convergence may result simply from the shared perspective from which the questions are addressed, and hence may not provide any good reason for supposing that past theories were successful because some of their parts were approximately true. It simply begs the question, against those who doubt that success indicates approximate truth, if past successes are attributed without independent justification to those parts of modern theories that have been retained. One response to the problem of whiggish history seeks means of splitting scientific theories in ways that involve no dependence on more modern scientific understanding. I’m not overly optimistic about the strategy. More importantly, there are reasons to worry that a complete embargo on current knowledge, for purposes of reassessing past theories, is unnecessarily restrictive. Science is self-correcting. We know more about confounding variables, previously unappreciated alternative explanations, vulnerabilities with observation and equipment, and so on. In short, we appear better situated to evaluate past theories than those who came before us. Denying ourselves access to such advantages, when evaluating past results, shouldn’t be admitted too hastily. What becomes an important issue, therefore, is that of understanding when our history has become whiggish. In this paper I argue that this question requires us to consider the kinds of questions we ask about replaced theories and the evidence that was offered in their support, the ways in which we utilize contemporary understanding for purposes of addressing those questions, and what realists can justifiably conclude on the basis of these analyses. For example, there is an important distinction between dismissing the postulates of rejected theories on the grounds that these have not been retained within our current scientific image, and dismissing those same posits for reasons that can be independently justified. It was once considered a verifiable fact that the size of Venus, as observed from Earth, did not vary appreciably. We now know that the spatial resolution of naked eye observations is insufficient to trust such determinations. Insofar as Ptolemaic astronomy successfully accounted for observations of Venus’s apparent size, we now recognize that success as an illusion. Now, critics of the success-to-truth inference will respond that today’s successes could be similarly illusory. This is a response that needs to be

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taken seriously, but I’ll argue that it gestures us towards the kinds of scientific realism that are viable rather than presenting a decisive obstacle to scientific realism in all its forms. Today’s scientific realists are fallibilists. Fallibilism is consistent with the idea that science is self-correcting, and that our theories are becoming more truth-like. A realist might therefore claim only that science becomes more truth-like as we unearth and remove errors, although now the role of ‘success’ in defending realism becomes more obscure. More positive realist theses are also worth consideration, however. Fallibilism about scientific knowledge can motivate the idea that scientific success is best understood comparatively: theories are not successful, or unsuccessful, but more or less successful than available alternatives. Coupling a comparative notion of success with the selective realist strategy suggests we should be particularly interested in those novel insights that have induced scientific progress. If comparative empirical success is achieved through the introduction of more truth-like ideas, then we might anticipate the retention of those ideas, or at least something closely approximating those ideas. There are further worries to be confronted here, but the problem of whiggish history is one I’ll argue that we can overcome. Ultimately, the problem of whiggish history need not extend to a complete prohibition on current understanding, although that there are important lessons to be learned about how history can inform the realism debate and what kind of selective realist theses might emerge.

24) Christian Carman & José DíezLaunching Ptolemy to the Scientific Realism Debate: Did Ptolemy Make Novel and Successful Predictions?

Scientific realism (SR) about unobservables claims that the non observational content of our successful/justified empirical theories is true, or approximately true. As is well known, its best argument is a kind of abduction or inference to the best explanation, the so-called Non-Miracle Argument (NMA): if a theory is successful in its observational predictions that performs making use of non-observational content/posits, if such non-observational content would not approximately correspond to the world “out there”, its predictive success would be unexplainable/incomprehensible/miraculous. In short: SR provides the best explanation for the empirical success of predictively successful theories. Empiricists like Van Fraassen may argue that NMA is question begging, or simply has false premises, for there is other (at least equally good) explanation of empirical success, namely empirical adequacy. Yet, most realists feel comfortable replying that that empirical adequacy provides no explanation at all, or at best an inferior explanation than (approximate) truth. This comfortable position enters into crisis when Laudan brings the pessimistic meta-induction (back) to the debate. Laudan recalls that history of science offers us many cases of predictively successful yet (according to him) totally false theories, and provides a long list of such cases. Laudan’s confutation was contested in different ways, among them arguing that his list contains many cases in which the theory in point was not really a piece of mature science and/or that it was cocked for making the successful predictions. But not all cases could be so contested and realists acknowledged that at least in two important cases, caloric and ether theories, we have successful and novel predictions made with a theoretical apparatus that posits non-observable entities (caloric fluid, mechanical ether) that according to the next, superseding theories do not exist at all, not even approximately. Realists accept that they must accommodate such cases and the dominant way of doing so is going selective: when a theory makes a novel, successful prediction, the part of its non-observational content “responsible” of such a prediction need not always be the whole non-observational content; many times it is only part of the non-observational content what is essential for the novel prediction, and it is only the approximate truth of this part what explains the observational success. Selective Scientific Realism (SSR) may be summarized thus: Really successful (i.e. with novel predictions) predictive theories have a part of its non-observational content, the part responsible of their successful predictions, that is (a) approximately true, and (b) approximately preserved by the posterior theories which, if more successful, are more truth-like. SSR(a) explains synchronic empirical success and SSR(b) explains diachronic preservation (and increase) of empirical success. Since we don’t have independent, non observational direct access to the world to test SSR(a), the claim that is relevant for testing SSR as a meta-empirical thesis is SSR(b). And selective realists claim that history of science confirms SSR(b). According to them, the historical cases that count as confutations or anomalies for plain, non qualified realism, are actually confirmative instances of its more sophisticated, selective reformulation SSR. Although caloric and ether theories are false, they are not totally false, they have a non-observational part that is responsible of the relevant novel successful predictions which (is approximately true and that) has actually been approx retained by its historical successor. Then history confirms SSR(b), the only testable part of SSR, the SSR is an empirical thesis that, though fallible, is historically well conformed. Confronted with an alleged case of a theory that made ovel, successful predictions but such that -the opponent argues- its non-observable content is not retained by the superseding theory, the selective realist must find out a part of the theory in point that is both (i) sufficient for the relevant prediction and (ii) approx retained by the superseding theory. As an empirical thesis, SSR may have anomalies and the way it must fix them is always doing this divide et impera movement. According to some, SSR successfully fixed the caloric and ether anomalies, while

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according to others it has not, or not yet, or not fully. The debate continues, and other eventual anomalies are presented and discussed. For instance the phlogiston case, initially dismissed as a pseudo-case but later acknowledged by some as a real troublesome case and faced in a similar SSR manner. Our goal here is to launch a new case to this debate: Ptolemaic astronomy. This was another item in Laudan’s list, though quickly dismissed as not really doing novel predictions. We argue that this is not so. The “not novel predictions” tag put on Ptolemy’s astronomy is a consequence of the “mere epycile+deferent” reading of the theory, a myth that, like alls myths, is extremely popular but false. We find this case particularly useful for it is easier to find here the parts responsible of the predictions. In other cases, such as the caloric or ether ones, much of the discussion and disagreement between realists and their opponents concern whether some non-obervational part of the theory was/was not really necessary for the relevant prediction. Was the hypothesis of a mechanical substance with orthogonal vibration necessary for deriving Fresnel’s laws, from which the white spot prediction follows? Realists say no (to the mechanical substance), opponents say yes. Was the material fluidity of caloric essential for the derivation of the speed of sound in …? Realists say no, opponents say yes. Likewise in other cases. We find Ptolemy’s case especially useful in this regard, for here the contents responsible of the predictions are relatively easy to identify. We find this case not only especially useful but also especially interesting, for here the SSR strategy of trying to find in the superseding theory the approx retention of the prediction-responsible parts seems prima facie particularly difficult, if not unpromising. But a detailed discussion of, and conclusion about, each case for the SSR debate goes beyond the limits of this paper. Our goal here more limited, just to lunch these predictions to the scientific realism arena, showing that Ptolemy’s case deserves attention in this debate. We will present and discuss what we think are the best candidates in Ptolemy's astronomy for successful novel predictions: (1) The parallax/distance of the Moon at syzygies (2) The phases of inner planets at first conjunction and outer planets at conjunction (3) That Mercury and Venus are the only planets between the Sun and the Earth (4) The growth of brightness during retrograde motion for Mars (5) Mars is not eclipsed by the Earth The conclusion is that, but perhaps for the first, these cases represent a challenge that the selective realist must face.

25) Timothy Lyons – Epistemic Selectivity, Historical Testability, and the Non-Epistemic Tenets of Scientific Realism.

In Part One of this paper, I survey a set of live-option meta-hypotheses that contemporary scientific realists claim we can justifiably believe. More carefully, scientific realists offer an empirical meta-hypothesis about scientific theories that, they claim, we can justifiably believe. In its unrefined formulation, that hypothesis is “successful scientific theories are approximately true.” The justification for the second correlate of this meta-hypothesis, approximate truth, is that it constitutes the only or at least the best explanation of the first correlate, success. Prompted (e.g. by Laudan) to address empirical, historical challenges against that unrefined version of the realist meta-hypothesis, realists have modified the correlates of that meta-hypothesis (and accordingly, the elements of their explanatory argument). In particular, realists have introduced into their meta-hypothesis various criteria meant to pick out particular constituents of scientific theories. Here I endeavor to identify the most charitable formulations of the recent criteria advanced by realists and, hence, the most recently formulated meta-hypotheses that today’s realists claim we can justifiably believe. Upon doing so, I argue that each resulting live-option meta-hypothesis falls into one or more of the following categories: (1) the criterion packed into the second correlate of the meta-hypothesis fails to pick out those constituents that are genuinely responsible, and so deserving of credit, for success—and, hence, crucially, the criterion fails to offer the selective realist any kind of explanation of that success; or (2), the criterion merely immunizes epistemic realism, resulting in a meta-hypothesis that is neither testable nor able to inform us of just which theoretical constituents are picked out by the meta-hypothesis that realists claim we can justifiably believe; or (3), the criterion fails to pick out constituents that reach to a level deeper than the empirical data, thereby failing to license commitment to a meta-hypothesis that goes beyond meta-hypotheses that are happily embraced by anti-realists; or finally, (4), although the criterion is relevant, testable, and adequately realist, the meta-hypothesis containing the criterion as a correlate is in significant conflict with available historical data. In Part Two, I focus on those realist meta-hypotheses falling into category (4). Doing so, I offer a novel account of the nature of the historical argument against epistemic realism. I contend that the form and content of this novel argument render untenable even a fallible, conjectural variant of epistemic realism. Also, mindful that some historians are inclined to deny the legitimacy of testing philosophical hypotheses against the history of science, I show that, when these realist meta-hypotheses are properly understood, for instance, as hypotheses about scientific texts, their testability is no more problematic than the testability of scientific hypotheses. And inquiry should not be banned in the former case any more than it should in the latter.

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In Parts Three and Four, I direct these arguments toward a positive conclusion. Despite the fact that some otherwise relevant, testable, and adequately realist meta-hypotheses conflict with historical data (those category (4) meta-hypotheses), the examination and testing of such meta-hypotheses is nonetheless profoundly informative toward the development of a proper and, in fact, still realist conception of science. In more detail, one can invoke the selective realist’s primary insight at a higher level: as above, selective scientific realists acknowledge that scientific theoretical systems contain various individual constituents, and they endeavor to formulate an appropriately refined/restrictive meta-hypothesis that we can justifiably believe; yet just as scientific theoretical systems consist of individual theoretical constituents, scientific realism itself consists of a set of individual constituents or tenets. The epistemic tenet that we can justifiably believe the selective realist meta-hypothesis, for instance, that “those theoretical constituents genuinely contributing to successful novel predictions are approximately true”—this is only one constituent of scientific realism. I argue that one can fruitfully bracket belief—or at least our obsession with what we, or scientists, can justifiably believe—and so bracket that epistemic tenet of scientific realism. After doing so, in Part Four, I identify and isolate a set of non-epistemic yet nonetheless fundamental constituents or tenets of scientific realism, whose articulations, I contend, have received insufficient attention, especially when compared to the epistemic tenet around which the debate has pivoted. For instance, while realists emphasize that the primary aim of science is truth, just which subclass of true claims science seeks remains inadequately explicated. Also, although realists embrace “inference to the best explanation” as the primary mode of inference by which science endeavors to attain truth, realists (as well as non-realists) readily admit that we lack a proper understanding of just what this kind of inference amounts to. My proposal here is that, despite the historical threat against the epistemic tenet of scientific realism, careful attention to the testable meta-hypotheses of selective realism and the historical data put forward against those meta-hypotheses affords us a far more informed articulation of these other non-epistemic yet nonetheless wholly realist theses—e.g. regarding the kind of truth science seeks and the mode of inference employed to attain it. And, bracketing belief as I am proposing, these refined articulations can be deployed—in the way scientific hypotheses can be deployed—as tools for further inquiry. That is, with these more informed articulations comes a better understanding of the nature of past scientific practice, one that may even afford contemporary scientists themselves liberation from some of the myths (e.g. whiggism) to which they may inadvertently maintain a commitment. Hence, although I challenge the view that selective realism succeeds in picking out a meta-hypothesis we can justifiably believe, I seek to show how testing such empirical meta-hypotheses against the history of science can be immensely valuable, perhaps even toward the advancement of scientific inquiry itself.

26) Peter Vickers – A Disjunction Problem for Selective Scientific Realism

Selective scientific realists make a realist commitment not to a ‘whole theory’ which enjoys predictive success, but instead to the parts of the theory which are doing the scientific work to bring about that success. But what it means to ‘do the scientific work’ is still very much an open question. A reasonably uncontentious starting point is to make it a sufficient condition for doing scientific work that a constituent plays a clear role in the derivation of a successful, novel prediction. But we may ask: what does ‘clear role’ mean? Suppose for a given case we find a derivation of a prediction in the scientific literature. Can we claim that the assumptions and/or equations written down as part of that derivation are ‘working’, and therefore require realist commitment? No, this would be a mistake. Just because some assumption has been used to reach a successful/correct conclusion, doesn’t mean we ought to believe it is (approximately) true. Toy counterexamples bring this to life. A doctor might be quite wrong about your having the adenovirus, and yet still reach correct conclusions about how your symptoms will develop. There is no ‘miracle’ here. The reason the doctor’s conclusions are correct is that you do have one of the cold viruses, and the doctor is committed to you having one of the cold viruses in virtue of her more specific assumption that you have the adenovirus. And, crucially, the reasoning doesn’t depend on the virus specifically being the adenovirus. Similarly, one might correctly predict a lift’s cables will snap by reasoning with the false assumption that the load is 50kg too heavy (Saatsi 2005, p.532). One predicts successfully, since the reasoning only depends on the assumption that the load is too heavy – the belief that it is specifically 50kg too heavy is idle (not ‘working’). If ‘playing a role in the derivation of a successful prediction’ is not sufficient to be ‘doing work’ in the sense relevant to realist commitment, what is? The above examples suggest that one should consider, for any given step in a scientific derivation, whether that step would have gone through with less specific, weaker assumptions. If it would, then the realist only makes a commitment to those weaker assumptions. But what do we mean by ‘weaker’? In the above toy examples we can think of B being weaker than A whenever B is entailed by A: ‘Dave has one of the cold viruses’ is entailed by ‘Dave has the adenovirus’, and ‘The load is too heavy’ is entailed by ‘The load is 50kg too heavy’. Thus Vickers (2013) defines ‘weaker’ in terms of entailment within his own theory of selective realist commitment. However, in general we can’t mean ‘entailed by’ when we say ‘weaker than’ – this leads to a disjunction problem.

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The problem, briefly, is as follows. Given some assumption A involved in the derivation of a prediction, a weaker (entailed) assumption is always AvB for any arbitrary B. Now if B is chosen/engineered so that it can be used to make the derivational step go through, then AvB is an assumption weaker than A which is sufficient for the derivation to ‘work’. Allowing such disjunctions within the realist’s definition of ‘weaker’ would lead to some very odd results for realist commitment. Take the case of the plummeting lift: the realist’s commitments would have to include some peculiar disjunction such as ‘The load was too heavy OR somebody cut the cables OR the cables were old and weak OR …’. This is a statement, entailed by ‘The load is too heavy’, which is sufficient to reach the successful prediction that the lift will indeed plummet. But then a concern arises that the realist’s commitments can never fail, since whatever caused the lift to plummet can be tacked onto the end as an extra disjunct. In addition, many anti-realists would be happy with making this sort of commitment: of all the different disjuncts one of them might be (approximately) true, but the problem is that we can’t know which one, since all of them lead to the same successful prediction. In theories of causal explanation we find a very similar disjunction problem. Sometimes explanations include overly specific claims, and one reaches a better explanation by introducing ‘more abstract’ (weaker) claims. However, this goes wrong if one allows the move from claim A to claim AvB for arbitrary B. To get around the problem Strevens (2008) introduces a ‘cohesion requirement’, which “acts as a brake on abstraction, halting it before it crosses the line into disjunction.” (p.103). Whether this ‘cohesion requirement’ can help the realist with her own disjunction problem will be investigated in this paper. References Saatsi, J. (2005): ‘Reconsidering the Fresnel-Maxwell Case Study’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 36(3): 509–38. Strevens, M. (2008): Depth. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Vickers P. (2013): ‘A Confrontation of Convergent Realism’, Philosophy of Science 80(2): 189-211

27) Raphael Kunstler – Semirealist’s dilemma

The goal of my paper is to evaluate semirealism’s ability to satisfy selective realism’s requirements. I try to show that, in spite of its qualities, semirealism (henceforth SMR) an ambiguous position, and that this ambiguity threatens the whole project of providing a realist response to the pessimistic argument. The claim of my paper is that semirealism answers PA, but the price of this answer is a closet instrumentalism. This assessment leads me wonder how to fix Charkravartty’s position. Framing the problem — An uncontroversial definition of scientific realism defines it as the belief that theoretical posits are true, and that objets that are described by scientific theories really exist. One leading argument against this position is the pessimistic argument (PA). Instead of rejecting this argument, a possible response to it is to reformulate one’s realism. It is possible to grant to the argument that a part of our theories are not well grounded, without renouncing to the belief that everything that the theory says is true. This strategy, which is sometimes called Selective realism (RS), claims that only a part of these objects exist (?). Its main challenge is to find a reason to prefer a part of theories over other parts (?, 31). This choice must not be arbitrary : it needs to bear on a reliable epistemic base, that is good reasons to believe the theoretical content of theories. Let us make explicit the requirements that should be met by any selective realist strategy. In order to do so, it is useful to distinguish selective realism and selective skepticism (SS). According to Chakravartty, SS consist in restraining one’s theoretical commitments to only a part of scientific theories, in order to identify these parts that are not expose to future refutation. To be successful, a selective skepticism strategy does not have to be as precise as a selective realism strategy : selective realism implies selective skepticism but the reverse is false. A selective skepticism strategy is not necessarily a realist one. This can easily be shown : instrumentalism is a selective skepticism, but a selective realism. ?, 31 underestimates the fact that instrumentalism is also a SS position. In its original intention, Laudan’s argument should not be construed as a one step argument, but a two step one. His strategy is fully revealed in his answer to Alex Rosenberg. The lesson to be drawn from this distinction between SS and SR is that a satisfying realist answer to PA should not only be realistic (?), but also realist. Therefore, a selective realist strategy (SRS) should satisfy the three following requirements : 1. Ability to resist the PA 2. Identification of an epistemic base capable of supporting non-empirical claims. 3. Identification of an a non-empirical content epistemically justified. There are three main ways of failing to be a complete SRS : A) Instrumentalism : this position only satisfies requirements (1) and (2). B) Constructivism : this position only satisfies requirements (1) and (3). C) Convergent realism : this position only satisfies requirements (1) and (3) Two interpretations of semirealism — SMR can be defined by the three following claims : — The empirical base of SMR is the knowledge of detection properties (this is the lesson drawn from entity realism). — The content of SMR’s commitment is concrete structures. A concrete structure is a set of detection properties. — The selective skepticism aspect of SMR is encapsulated in the distinction between detection and auxiliary properties. Only detection properties should be regarded as robust. In order to assess SMR’s value in the light of SR’s requirements, it is necessary to clarify Chakravartty’s

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position. The notion of « detection property » plays a central function in SMR. In order to clarify this notion of detection properties, let us introduce a preliminary distinction between experimental and unobservable properties. An experimental property is a property of an experimental setting : it is an observable property, it can be used as an epistemic justification of other claims. A detector has experimental properties : it is observable and give us good reasons to believe some propositions. An unobservable property is a property of an unobservable object. In order to be a satisfying selective strategy position, a theory should identify experimental properties that enable scientists to conclure in the existence of some unobservable properties. Experimental properties should be the basis of realist knowledge and unobservable properties should be its object. Now, in the characterization of SMR, detection properties seem to have two functions. On the one hand, they are seen as experimental properties. On the second hand, they are regarded as the very content of scientific theories, as realist properties. The whole project of SRM is grounded on the two following identifications : Some of the effects of unobservable objects are experimental changes. The cause of experimental changes are unobservable objets. To identify these two properties requires to solve the epistemic circle problem. Semirealist’s dilemma is the impossibility to simultaneously satisfy the three requirements of a selective realism strategy. Either detection properties are construed as properties of the detectors (or as experimental properties) or as the properties of the detected objects (or as unobservable properties). This ambiguity leads to two very different interpretations of SMR : — If DP are the detector’s properties, they are a good epistemic justification, but only for an instrumentalist content. — If DP are objets’s properties, then, they have a genuine realist content, but they are not epistemologically grounded.

28) Elena Castellani – Structural Continuity and Realism

Continuity through theory change is a key issue for scientific realism. In particular, structural continuity through theory change plays a crucial role in the form of scientific realism called structural realism. The possibility of individuating some continuity of structure between predecessor and succes- sor ‘mature’ scientific theories was notoriously used by John Worrall, in his seminal 1989 paper on structural realism, for obtaining ‘the best of both worlds’: that is, to account for ‘the empirical success of theoretical science’, while accepting ‘the full impact of the historical facts about theory change in science’. Since Worrall’s 1989 formulation, structural realism has been much dis- cussed and different versions have been proposed. But the central role at- tributed to structural continuity has remained unchanged. In general, it is assumed that a form of continuity between subsequent successful theories is a necessary condition for a realist stance. With respect to structural real- ism, the assumption is that preservation of some sort at the structural level is what guarantees that ‘fundamental’ scientific theories succeed in representing some ‘real’ structure of the physical world and are, in this sense, approxi- matively true. Structural continuity is thus an essential ingredient in the ‘no miracles argument’ (the empirical successes of our best theories would be miracles if what these theories say that is going on behind the phenomena were not true) when used in support of scientific realism in its structuralist version. Although commonly accepted as a condition for structural realism, struc- tural continuity has become matter of some critical reflection in recent liter- ature. One main point of discussion is the appropriatedness of the historical evidence provided. In particular, much attention has been paid to the case first used by Worrall to motivate structural realism by means of structural continuity, namely the shift from Fresnel’s theory of light (as an elastic dis- turbance in the aether) to Maxwell’s theory of light (as an electromagnetic wave). Worrall himself has repeatedly advocated the atypical nature of the Fresnel-Maxwell shift and indicated, as much more representative, the cases where the equations of the older theory reappear in modified form as special cases of the newer theory – in particular, the cases where, as some param- eter of the newer theory tends to some limiting value, the newer theory’s equations tend to the older theory’s equations. Whether these indeed are, as claimed by Worrall, the most straighforward cases of structural retention (or quasi-retention) through theory change in the history of science is a debated issue, especially in consideration of the frequent cases of discontinuous trans- formations from successor to predecessor structures (as in the case of singular limits) in modern physics. Finally, some doubts have been raised about the strength of the correlation between continuity (intended as preservation) and approximate truth, without however denying its crucial role. According to Saatsi (2012), for example, continuity across theory shifts is not enough for the realist: the kind of content found to be continuous should also be suit- ably explanatory. Another instance is Votsis (2011), where the conclusion is that the structural continuity argument should be considered as ‘inductively strong’ rather than as ‘deductive’. This paper aims at a critical evaluation of the structural continuity con- dition by taking into account one aspect that is usually neglected in the literature on the subject: namely, the relevance of physical scales when con- sidering theory change in physics. In fact, physical theories are generally intended to describe a given range of phenomena. They have specific do- mains of application, commonly defined in correspondence to some range or level of the adopted physical scale (for example, the energy scale). In the pas- sage from a

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‘predecessor’ to a ‘successor’ physical theory, the level at which the phenomena are considered may remain unchanged – the inter-theory re- lations are ‘within the same level’ (intra-level relations) –, or there may be a variation of the domain of application (usually by a change of the value range of the scale) – the inter-theory relations are between different levels (inter-level relations). It is a central claim of the paper that whether the domain remains the same or changes in the passage from one physical theory to another is a question of crucial relevance when evaluating the significance of structural continuity (as a kind of intertheoretic relation) for a structural realist stance. In particular, it is maintained that how to intend ‘successive theories’ is not independent from whether the inter-theory passage is domain preserving or not. In current discussions on structural continuity, ‘theory change’ is generally taken to indicate the substitution of a preceding theoretical description with another more successful one. The idea is that the first theory is elimi- nated when the second one is proposed. However, as argued in the paper, this is not what happen in most of the cases of intertheoretic relations typically considered as representative for discussing structural continuity: in partic- ular, the cases where the relation between a ‘predecessor’ theory T and a ‘successor’ theory T l is such that, in a certain part of the successor theory T l’s domain of application, the results of T l are well approximated by those of the ‘predecessor’ theory T . The paper is articulated into three Parts. The first Part goes back to the historical source of structural realism by examining how the much debated Fresnel-Maxwell shift is originally discussed by Poincar´e in his 1902 classic text, Science and Hypothesis. The claim is that the actual issue, in this dis- cussion, is not so much what is retained in the change from a predecessor to a successor theory, as rather what is ‘true’ in the case there are different descriptions of the same physics. The following Parts are devoted to exam- ining the structural continuity condition in intra-level and inter-level cases, respectively. The conclusion is that (under certain assumptions) structural continuity is a viable condition for a structural realist stance when the inter- theory relations are within the same level, while this is generally not the case when the inter-theory relations are between different levels. References H. Poincar´e [1902: La Science et l’Hypoth`ese] (1905), Science and Hypothesis, London: Walter Scott Publishing. J. Saatsi (2012), ‘Scientific Realism and Historical Evidence: Shortcomings of the Current State of Debate’, in In Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009, Springer, 329-340.

I. Votsis (2011), ‘Structural Realism: Continuity and its Limits’, in A. Bokulich and P. Bokulich (eds.), Scientific Structuralism, Dordrecht: Kluwer. J. Worrall (1989), ‘Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?’, Dialectica 43: 99-124.

29) Tom Pashby – Entities, Experiments and Events: Structural Realism Reconsidered

The recent structuralist turn of scientific realism was introduced to smooth out the onto- logical discontinuities of theory change. However, it has led some to strong metaphysical theses aimed at eliminating non-structural elements from our ontology entirely. There is a tension here, I claim, with the idea that the foundation of our empirical knowledge comes from the particular outcomes of experiments, and that ultimately what the scien- tific realist should be committed to is the existence of experimentally accessible entities like electrons and positrons. I contend that the structural realist owes an account of how a commitment to theoretical structure suffices to justify ontological claims about theoretical entities made in specific situations, such as in the laboratory. This problem can be clearly seen by considering elements of the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars. In ‘Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,’ Sellars addresses the conflict be- tween two systematic modes of thinking about the objective world: the manifest image and the scientific image. Only the scientific image “involves the postulation of impercep- tible entities, and principles pertaining to them, to explain the behaviors of perceptible things.” However, according to James Ladyman and Steven French’s Ontic Structural Re- alist, the scientific image (properly understood) posits structures, not self-subsisting in- dividual entities. Whereas Bas van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricist sought to defang the scientific image by eschewing the ambitions of scientific theories to represent more than the observable phenomena, the Ontic Structural Realist advocates the elimination of non-structural objects and thus apparently seeks to eliminate the manifest image. I contend that to do so would be a mistake. First, as Sellars maintains, the manifest image is open to revision, rather than elimination. Second, the scientific image has the man- ifest image as a foundation and, in Sellars’ words, “pre-supposes the manifest image.” If Sellars is right then the scientific image cannot get off the ground without a robust commitment to the perceptible objects of the manifest image. In other words, the very foundation of scientific realism is a straightforward realism about ordinary objects and events as concrete particulars. This idea is captured nicely by Ian Hacking’s Entity Re- alist, who takes the instrumental success of experimental practices and manipulations (when explained in terms of the existence and properties of unobservable entities) to jus- tify belief in theoretical entities. It is precisely this belief in entities as individuals

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(with explanatory power) that is undercut by Ontic Structural Realism. Rather than abandoning this entity inspired path to scientific realism, the structural re- alist can choose to revise (rather than reject) the manifest image. My proposal to do so involves the rejection of idea of the manifest image that ordinary persisting objects are (metaphysically speaking) self-subsistent individuals, while preserving the commitment to the existence of concrete particulars. The concrete particulars I endorse are events, that is, spatio-temporally located happenings or occurrences. The possibility of modifying the manifest image in this manner was considered by Sellars in ‘Time and the World Or- der,’ and actively pursued by Bertrand Russell in The Analysis of Matter (and later works). In short, the proposal is for an event ontology, in terms of which both the manifest and scientific image may both be understood. Indeed, Russell’s proposal for an event ontology provides the historical context for his adoption of structural realism (a circumstance that is seldom reflected upon in later dis- cussions of Russell’s structuralism). Where Russell advised restricting belief to structural relations, these were relations among external events rather than objects. This provided the means for an account of veridical perception in terms of a series of events which to- gether comprise both the object perceived and its perception. Considering this account in the context of Sellars’ epistemological realism of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, we see that an event ontology provides the opportunity for a rapproachment of the manifest and scientific images. That is, the capacity of the human observer to truly perceive objects in the external world need not be underwritten by the existence of what is perceived qua persisting individual but rather an appropriate concatenation of related events. But this is precisely what Russell believed of unobservable entities like electrons. When we reflect on the observable evidence we have for such entities, such as cloud cham- ber tracks or dots on a luminescent detector, these are best characterized as observable events rather than objects. According to Russell, however, persisting objects are them- selves nothing more than a series of events. Thus, within an event ontology, this evidence is no different in kind from that which serves to underwrite our belief in macroscopic entities such as tennis balls, water, or lightning. In turn, inspired by Sellars, I propose an understanding of our ordinary perception of such objects in terms of mental capacities for immediate detection which may be extended into the scientific realm of remote detectors and inferential knowledge. In this way, Russell’s event ontology provides the means for a structural realist to bridge the divide between the manifest and scientific images.

30) Angelo Cei – The Epistemic Structural Realist Program. Some interference.

The paper is intended to assess the prospects of Epistemic Structural Realism (ESR) to constitute a sound realist response to antirealist preoccupations raised by deep historical changes in science. This aim is achieved contrasting various forms of ESR with a case of theoretical change in the history of physics. In particular, I will devote my attention to the explanation of the Zeeman effect offered in Lorentz Theory of Electrons and how it looks from the perspective of Relativistic Electrodynamics. The various positions will be contrasted with this case and the prospects of ESR evaluated in this context. Deep changes in theoretical frameworks constitute a major challenge for realist positions on science. The family of antirealist arguments that exploits this historical fact goes under the headings of pessimistic meta-induction (PMI). The argument questions the fundamental idea that an abductive inference from success to truth is legitimate and it is the best explanation of the success of science. It does so drawing on the harshness of historical lessons: past dismissed theories were, after all, instances of successful science but they are now taken as false. On one hand, there is a wide range of realist attacks to PMI. On the other hand, several theories in the history of physics exhibit commonalities captured by mathematical structures. Worrall (1989) turned one of this cases into a proposal for a highly debated version of realism. He insisted that we are justified in believing in the equations of our best physical theories. These theoretical features are in fact immune from the theoretical changes that are the focus of the antirealist's concern. The case in point was the retention of Fresnel’s equations in Maxwell’s electromagnetism. Worrall’s picture conceded something to the antirealist: Fresnel's ether is gone, no track of it remains in modern science. Nonetheless, we do have knowledge: it is knowledge of structure though and it is not knowledge of entities. Hence we ought to embrace Epistemic Structural Realism (ESR). This is view features a variety of alternative views that range from the adoption of the Ramsey Sentence to updated versions of Russellian structural knowledge (See Votsis, 2005). In this work, I chose to confine myself to the context of physics and I intend to present ESR with the following dilemma developed through a case study: either ESR has nothing particularly structuralist to offer in defence of realism – where structural refers to certain kinds of relations that allegedly survive to the change; or a defence based merely on structural features might not be sufficient to support a form of realism. This result will emerge through the analysis of the two exemplar versions of ESR (in this sense we can talk of a program) and of various criticisms available in the literature concerned with the topic. The contrasting case for this analysis is the study of the prediction of the Normal Zeeman Effect (NZF). NZF is notoriously a phenomenon of alteration of the frequency of light due to the effect of a magnetic field on its source.

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Depending on the intensity of the magnetic field the effect of alteration of the spectrum of light varies considerably and a family of diverse effects may occurr. The model adopted for the prediction in Lorentz’s theory of Electrons (1916) explains the Zeeman Effect as a precession in the period of oscillation of a radiating charge. The radiating charge is an electron whose acceleration explains the emission of light. The alteration on the period of oscillation of the electron due to the magnetic force exerted by the field determines an alteration in the frequency of the light. The core features of this explanatory model are the Lorentz Force and a model of the electron as extended body featuring an harmonic motion. The harmonic motion and the Lorentz Force can feature a relativistic explanation as well but the Relativistic version of the model prescribes a point charge. A point charge is in turn incompatible with the original classical explanation. Furthermore, a variety of physical magnitudes involved in the prediction undergoes to a significant shift from the classical to the relativistic context. In this context I test the Epistemic Structural Realist Program. I argue that this case despite its prima facie favourability to the structuralist cause puts a considerable stress on it. After having set the physics stage, I go on to articulate this argument analysing the presupposition that lie behind (the various version of) ESR and disambiguating the various conceptions of structure that are left unaddressed in the literature. The contrast with the case study will show that a particular development of the position seem to offer the best prospects. References

Lorentz, H., A., (1916) The Theory of Electron, Leipzig, Teubner Votsis, I., 2005. “The upward path to structural realism,” Philosophy of Science, 72: 1361– 1372. Worrall, J.,1989 - “Structural Realism. The best of Both Worlds?”, Dialectica, 43: 99–124

31) Kevin Coffey – Is Underdetermination a Problem for Structural Realism?

Enthusiasm for scientific realism is often tempered by considerations of theory under- determination: that is, the challenge of justifying belief in a particular theory when there are (or likely are) alternative theories equally adequate to the empirical data. Recently, however, several philosophers have argued that (epistemic) structural realism is insulated from the threat of underdetermination in a way that other, standard forms of scientific realism are not. (Structure realism is the view, very roughly, that we ought to commit ourselves only to the physical structures represented in our best theories, not the ontologies of entities and properties that constitute the relata in those theories.) For the problem of underdetermination turns on the claim that the realist is confronted with competing sets of commitments—e.g., competing theories—that are equally able to account for the empirical data. But the commitments of the structural realist only include physical structures, not the underlying theoretical ontologies. On this basis structural realists have argued that many (alleged) instances of theoretically equivalent rival theories are actually instantiations of the same underlying physical structures, de- spite their differing ontologies, and thus do not count as genuine competitors, at least not for the structural realist; they only count as genuine competitors according to the commitments of standard realism. Structural realism thus appears to defuse the threat of underdetermination that plagues other forms of scientific realism. I argue here that the opposite is true, even granting the structural realist’s strategy. By retreating to structure, the structural realist avoids one form of underdetermination only at the cost of exposing herself to another form of underdetermination—‘structural underdetermination’—which doesn’t pose a problem for standard realism. This new form of underdetermination arises on account of the fact that, in eschewing interpretive claims of underlying ontology, the structural realist is no longer able to identify su- perficially different structural representations that are, intuitively, equivalent (i.e., that are reformulations of one another). This presents the structural realist with cases of underdetermination that simply do not arise for the standard realist. Moreover, unlike more traditional forms of underdetermination, the ubiquity of which is controversial, there are reasons to think that structural underdetermination is widespread. In this sense, then, I argue that the problem of underdetermination is actually worse for the structural realist than it is for the standard realist. This argument brings to the surface a question that has dogged structural realism at least since John Worrall introduced the term: namely, what is meant by ‘structure’ ? For one natural way in which the structural realist might reply is to argue that theoretically equivalent formulations with superficially different structures actually do exhibit the same underlying structure. But the plausibility of this claim requires that the structural realist say much more about the notion of structure that’s operative in her account. I argue that the widespread Ramsey-sentence approach to theory structure, for example, isn’t able to make the sort of discriminations needed to defuse many cases of structural underdetermination. I conclude by arguing that recent attempts to refine the relevant notion of structure fail to appreciate how structural underdetermination arises, and thus are unlikely to provide an adequate resolution of the problem.

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32) Michael Vlerick - A biological case against entity realism

Entity realists hold that we should be realist about unobservable entities rather than committing oneself to the truth of the relational structure of the theory. The argument for this claim is that on an experimental level, we’re in direct causal contact with those postulated entities (cf. Hacking 1983). While I’m sympathetic to some form of selective realism, I argue that postulated unobservable entities are a poor choice to hinge claims of scientific realism on. I base my argument on a biological consideration of what underlies our modelling of unobservable entities. Modelling unobservables draws from two distinct but related sources. The first is our cognitively hard-wired folk physical concept of objecthood. The second is our vision based imagination. Both, I argue, are adaptive products of a blind evolutionary process enabling us to deal with real world problems in a way that promoted survival and reproduction in ecologically relevant contexts. However, when it comes to the ultimate structure of the physical world, there is absolutely no reason to assume that these sources are truth-tracking. According to Krellenstein (1995: 242) perception based concept formation is at source of the way we conceptualise unobservable entities such as atoms, electrons, and quarks. McGinn (1989: 358) refers to this as the ‘principle of homogeneity’. The theoretical models we use to describe the world, are shaped by an analogical extension of what we observe. In this regard, we arrive at the concept of a molecule based on our perceptual representations of macroscopic objects, conceiving of smaller scale objects of the same kind. Underlying the way we conceptualise unobservables therefore is our innate folk physical concept of objecthood. Empirical evidence in developmental psychology shows that we are strongly predisposed to view the world as consisting of discrete objects (see for example Kellman and Spelke 1983 on the notion of objecthood in infants). The notion of objecthood in this regard is not acquired through inductive learning, but wired into our brain, providing us with an innate and useful framework to navigate the physical world. However, as in the case of so many innately grounded folk concepts, their usefulness does not warrant their truthfulness. Take our innate predisposition to classify the organic world based on an intuition of a hidden trait or essence that members of the same group share with each other (Pinker, 1997:323). While this enabled our ancestors to make useful predictions about organisms, essentialism is flatly contradicted by Darwin’s theory of evolution. A second source underlying our conceptualisation of unobservables is visualisation. Whether we model electrons as circling around nuclei, protons being made up from quarks or replace particles by strings, we use mental imagery and therefore draw from our visual apparatus. Indeed, the fact that mental imagery is connected with our sense of vision is – next to being supported by simple observation – confirmed by extensive empirical evidence (cf. Kosslyn 1980). Therefore, the particular perceptual mechanisms we have evolved provide grounding to the perception based models we produce in theorizing about the world. Moreover, rather than being restricted to our five senses in modelling physical entities and properties, we are restricted to vision alone. Evolution did, indeed, provide us with a dominant sense. As primates we rely primarily on our sense of vision. This entails that our representation of the world is mainly a visual one, as opposed to many other mammal species who rely more on their olfactory and/or auditory sense. This dominant sense, rather than just providing us with the set of data upon which we rely the most in our interaction with the environment, also underlies the way in which we – as cognitively highly developed primates – come to conceptualise the physical world. Postulated unobservable entities, in this regard, are very much an extension of the way our biology predisposes us to view the world. Given the origin of these predispositions in a blind process ‘merely’ attuning the cognitive and perceptual wiring of a particular kind of organism (evolving primates) to a particular set of relevant environmental threats and opportunities (with regards to survival and reproduction), we should regard those postulated entities with a healthy dose of scepticism. Indeed, as pointed out, the cognitive predispositions underlying our manifest worldview are not shaped to enlighten us with the true, objective structures of reality (intuition based folk physics and biology are notoriously inaccurate), but to endow us with biological fitness in a thoroughly species-specific context. My argument, I want to emphasise, is by no means aimed at a wholesale rejection of scientific realism. I merely claim that entity realists hinge their realism on the wrong components of a scientific theory. A much more promising form of selective scientific realism, it seems to me, takes the structural (mathematical / relational) aspect of a theory to be in accord with the external world. A convincing defence of this position is offered by Ladyman and Ross (2007) and coined ‘ontic structural realism’ (OSR). According to OSR, our best physical theories tell us only about structure, not entities. In this perspective, our best scientific theories may very well latch onto real structures in the world, but doing so postulate models of entities we should not construe literally. References Barbour, I. 1974. Myths, models and paradigms: A comparative study in science and religion. New York: Harper & Row Publishers Hacking, I. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Kellman, P., Spelke, E. 1983. Perception of partly occluded objects in infancy. Cognitive psychology, 15: 483-524

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Kosslyn, S. 1980. Image and mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Krellenstein, M. 1995. Unsolvable problems, visual imagery and explanatory satisfaction. Journal of mind and behavior, 16: 235-253 Ladyman, J. and Ross, D., with Spurrett, D. and Collier, J. 2007. Every thing must go: Metaphysics naturalized. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. 1989. Can we solve the Mind-Body problem? Mind, New Series, vol. 98, 391: 349-366 Miller, A. 2000. Insights of genius: Imagery and creativity in science and art. Cambridge: MIT press

33) Rune Nyrup – Perspectival realism: where's the perspective in that?

Scientific realism is challenged by cases where two or more models relying on inconsistent assumptions provide the best accounts of different aspects of the same phenomenon. Examples include discrete and continuous models of water (Teller 2001, Giere 2006b, Chakravartty 2013), and atomic nucleus models (Morrison 2011). One solution would be to adopt a form of selective realism, restricting realist commitments to consistent parts of the models (e.g. Chakravartty 2013). An alternative strategy is suggested by Giere's perspectival realism (2006a, 2006b). Perspectivists are realists in a qualified sense, seeing models as accurate only relative to a perspective. This promises to be an interesting alternative by combining two features. First perspectivism does not rely on any metaphysical assumptions about the perspective-independent nature of the phenomena studied by science (causal properties, ontologically primitive structures, etc.). Second, it nonetheless promises to retain a sense of realism: models still give us knowledge about the world, though of a perspectival kind. This paper examines whether perspectivism can deliver on these promises. Giere's motivates these claims through an analogy between his account of scientific theorising and colour vision. Observers with the same perceptual system will reliably agree on colour ascriptions, and differences in colour depend systematically on features of the perceived objects. However, the structure of colour vision differs between species and, Giere argues, nothing in the world singles out any of these as capturing the “true” colours. At most, different kinds of colours vision can be claimed more or less useful for certain purposes. Systems of colour vision are supposed to be analogous to what Giere calls theoretical perspectives, which are constituted by the central equations of fundamental scientific theories, e.g. Newton's Laws of Motion. These, Giere holds, do not directly represent anything in the world, but provide a theoretical vocabulary and guidelines for constructing representational models, e.g. the harmonic oscillator. Only models represent the world, but are at best the most accurate representation of some phenomenon given the perspective they are constructed within. Thus, just as an object can be both completely red and green, given different systems of colour perception, perspectivists can regard water as both continuous and discrete, relative to the perspective of classical wave mechanics and statistical mechanics, respectively. The colour analogy is however unhelpful to perspectivists. In order to afford the sense of realism, it has to presuppose an independently existing object, with objective features which determine how it appears from different perspectives. But why we should refuse to theorise about these objective features, and restrict ourselves to perspective-relative claims? Giere stresses that there are no “perfect models” (Teller 2001) and that judgements about which models use to depend on contingent, pragmatic factors (our interests, cognitive abilities, historical context, etc.). But this at best motivates fallibilism, not wholesale scepticism, about capturing the objective features of the world (Lipton 2007). Giere remarks that all knowledge “comes from one perspective or another, not from no perspective at all” (2006a: 92), but this does not rule out that some perspectives, and the models they produce, give us a privileged representation of the world capturing its objective features (Chakravratty 2010, Votsis 2012). A more promising line in Giere's works starts from his agent-based view of representation. On this view, scientific representation is fundamentally an activity where an agent uses a model to represent a part of the world for some set of purposes. I develop this suggestion along the lines of deflationary anti-representationalism (e.g. Price 2013), in a way that allow us to retain the promising features of perspectivism I started out highlighting. The basic idea is this. Following deflationism, all representational claims, i.e. claims seemingly describing relations between representations and objective features of the world, are interpreted as mere meta-linguistic devices. These serve purposes of expressing commitments to other claims about the world. Thus, “p is true” is a way of committing oneself to p, but 'truth' can also serve to commit oneself to sets of propositions that cannot be stated explicitly, e.g. “everything this model says about wave-propagation is true”. Representational discourse bottom out in claims of the form “the system W is similar to the model X in regards to φ”. These claims are justified to the extent they help us achieve the purposes for which we use X to represent W, e.g. by allowing us to predict and intervene in its behaviour. Whether this is justified still depends partly on the features of W, but also pragmatic factors, such as our interests and abilities. Importantly, pragmatic factors here are not mere external distortions to the reliability of our judgements; they are intrinsic to the very practice of representing. Thus, although such claims do tell us something about the world, they cannot be presumed to correspond to the objective features of the world in any substantive sense.

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This is however not mere “rebranded instrumentalism” (Morrison 2011). It is still possible to explain why particular models are useful for certain purposes, for instance why large collections of discrete particles would approximate the behaviour of a continuous medium. But this explanation would itself be relying on one or more discrete models, subject to the same anti-representationalist story told above. For any particular model, we can explain its relation to the world independently of that model. But there can be no global account of which features of the world successful models correspond to independently of all models. Two points about the account sketched above. Firstly, I only present it as the most promising development of Giere's work insofar as it provides an interesting alternative to selective realism, but not to defend its plausibility beyond this. Second, while it captures some features of perspectivism, it cannot support the strong analogy to colour perspectives that Giere stresses. We can still talk of how the world appears “from the perspective” of some model, but the sharp distinction between representational models and merely instrumentally justified theoretical perspectives is blurred and indeed unnecessary on this account. References: Chakravartty, Anjan (2010): “Perspectivism, inconsistent models, and contrastive explanation”, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 41: 405-412.

- (2013): “Dispositions for Scientific Realism”, in: Greco & Groff (eds.), Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, Routledge.

Giere, Ronald (2006): Scientific Perspectivism, University of Chicago Press. - (2006b): “Perspetival Pluralism” in: Kellert, Longino, & Waters, (eds.): Scientific Pluralism, University of

Minnesota Press. - (2009): “Scientific Perspectivism: behind the stage door”, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 40: 221-223. Lipton, Peter (2007): “The World of Science”, Science 316: 834.

Morrison, Margaret (2011): “One phenomenon, many models: Inconsistency and Complementarity”, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 42: 342-351 Price, Huw (2013): Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism. Cambridge UP. Teller, Paul (2001): “Twillight of the Perfect Model Model”, Erkenntnis 55: 393-415. Votsis, Ioannis (2012): “Putting Realism in Perspective”, Philosophica 84: 85-122. D [4]: The Semantic View and Scientific Realism

34) Alex Wilson – Voluntarism and Psillos’ Causal-Descriptive Theory of Reference

In his Scientific Realism: how science tracks truth, Stathis Psillos attempts to develop a form of scientific realism in opposition to what he sees as limited or weaker forms of scientific realism. In this paper, I argue that Psillos’ implicit voluntarism undermines his causal-descriptive theory of reference. His theory of reference putatively picks out natural kinds objectively. However, Psillos’ three stances of scientific realism are worded vaguely enough to allow for voluntarism in regards to what counts as a kind constitutive description of a putative entity. Moreover, Psillos’ ultimate defense of the inference to the best explanation (IBE) is that he is an epistemic optimist. If Psillos’ justification for being a scientific realist in general and a believer in IBE in particular ultimately relies on voluntarism, then his causal-descriptive theory cannot show how it identifies natural kinds. If his version of scientific realism cannot identify natural kinds, then Psillos’ version of scientific realism is as weak as those of his scientific realist opponents. The targets of Psillos’ version of scientific realism are the entity realism of Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking, and the structural realism of John Worrall. The former claim that the entities putatively manipulated in laboratories are real, but the scientific theories that describe them are false. The latter maintains that the mathematical structures of scientific theories, and not their propositional content, explain the success of science. Psillos claims that scientific realism arises from three stances: the metaphysical stance, the semantic stance, and the epistemic stance. The metaphysical stance asserts that the world is mind-independent and has a natural kind structure. This first stance is necessary for scientific realism because it states what it is that scientific realism takes to be real. The semantic stance states that scientific theories take the descriptions of their intended domain, both observable and unobservable, as being literal and truth-conditioned. The epistemic stance holds that successful scientific theories are those that are well-confirmed and are approximately true of the world. Psillos claims that these stances are assumptions that one must hold if one is to identify as a scientific realist. While he concedes that these stances are ungrounded assumptions based solely on his intuitions, Psillos never explicitly calls his philosophy of science voluntarist. The forms of scientific realism advanced by Cartwright, Hacking, and Worrall are concessions to the pessimistic meta-induction. Psillos argues that these forms of concessionary scientific realism are untenable. In the case of Cartwright and Hacking, he contends that to believe in a theoretical entity one must believe some amount of theory. One could not distinguish theoretical entities, such as protons and electrons, without believing in theory.

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Moreover, one would not be rationally justified in believing in the existence of theoretical entities unless one believed some part of a theory that tells us what, say, a proton is and what it does. In the case of Worrall, Psillos contends that the required distinction between theory and structure is unsound. To derive the experimental consequences required to confirm the theory (or any part of it), theoretical interpretation of the theory’s mathematical structure is necessary. To safeguard his version of scientific realism from the challenge of the pessimistic meta-induction, Psillos develops a theory of reference that he claims picks out natural kinds from trivial posits in scientific theories. This theory of reference he calls the causal-descriptive theory of reference since it incorporates features from both causal and descriptive theories of reference. Psillos contends that not all descriptions of a theoretical posit should be taken to be referential. Rather, he claims that only those descriptions that are necessary for differentiating kinds from one another are referential. Natural kinds are those objects in the world that are mind-independent. Thus, those descriptions that are genuinely referential are called kind constitutive because they distinguish natural kinds from non-natural kinds. Psillos uses the transition from “luminiferous ether” to “electromagnetic field” as an exemplar to illustrate how his theory of reference picks out natural kinds and preserves reference across theory change. He claims that the former’s constitutive elements (such as its alleged elastic-solid structure) were not carried over into the description of the latter term’s constitution. Hence, Psillos concludes that the constitutive elements were non-natural while the kinematic and dynamical elements, which were carried over into the description of the electromagnetic field, are kind constitutive. Moreover, when identifying natural kind terms, Psillos appeals to the advocates of a successful theory to see which terms they took to be necessary for explaining the success of their theory. However, P. Kyle Stanford (2003) and Hasok Chang (2003) have shown that Psillos’ treatment of his historical examples is flawed. Psillos claims the proponents of the luminiferous ether and of caloric dismissed the constitutive properties of these posits as heuristic. However, the scientists Psillos cites in support of his causal-descriptive theory differed significantly from him in what they considered to be kind constitutive descriptions of these entities. Stanford describes how some scientists considered the constitutive properties of the luminiferous ether to be kind constitutive properties. Chang illustrates how the term “caloric” fits the description of a natural kind term according to Psillos’ standards. While Stanford and Chang challenge Psillos on historical grounds, I challenge him on philosophical grounds. I contend that if Psillos can dismiss the constitutive elements of the “luminiferous ether” and “caloric” as heuristic, then entity realists and structural realists can regard descriptions of theoretical entities as heuristics too. The entity realists and structural realists cannot be shown to be mistaken; rather they are merely more cautious than Psillos. I conclude that Psillos’ defense of scientific realism, and of semantic realism in particular, fails because his voluntarism undermines the objectivity of his philosophy.

35) Alistair Isaac – The Locus of the Realism Question for the Semantic View

The realism question—the question of how our best theories relate to the world—has traditionally been addressed within the semantic view (SV) through an analysis of the relationship between theory models and data models. This is because the data model has commonly been accepted as the window through which science approaches the world. I argue that the locus of the realism question for the founders of SV was not in the theory of data models, but in the theory of psychological judgments, particularly judgments of similarity. Reviving this position today has the advantage of suggesting an avenue of reconciliation between the formal strand of SV and recent work on modelling which self--- consciously perceives itself as offering an informal alternative to SV. Background: The formal program in SV has turned to increasingly weak mathematical analyses of the relation between theory and data models, e.g. isomorphism (van Fraassen, 1980), homomorphism (Mundy, 1989), and partial homomorphism (Bueno, French, and Ladyman, 2002). The lack of a general theory of this relationship (and the perceived inadequacy of a single mathematical formalism for providing one) has motivated some to reject the formal program of SV as misconceived (Godfrey---Smith, 2006), and has left even those more sympathetic to the formal approach with serious reservations (Frigg, 2006). An alternative program has focused on modelling practice in a more informal way, with the pertinent relation between model and world analysed as one of similarity (Giere, 1988; Weisberg, 2013). This informal approach to model realism often portrays itself as rectifying an error at the foundation of SV. Revisiting the Original Program: I examine two founders of SV and argue that, properly construed, their programs locate the realism question within the foundations of psychology. Patrick Suppes is canonically recognized as the founder of SV. However, Mary Hesse independently proposed essentially the same conceptual shift as Suppes; juxtaposing Suppes and Hesse reveals interesting commonalities in their research programs. In particular, both figures (i) call for models to serve as a central focus for philosophy of science; and (ii) provide insight into scientific method via comparisons of models which do not detour through the theory---world relation. In the case of Suppes, the project was to mathematically compare models of different theories in order to illustrate synchronic

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foundational relations between different parts of science; in the case of Hesse, the project was to compare models of successive stages in a field's development in order to illustrate the logic of diachronic reasoning in science. Suppes (1960) influentially brought the question of data models to the attention of philosophers of science. Furthermore, it is clear that Suppes considers the question of how data models relate to theory models a crucial one for the foundations of statistics. However, Suppes also argues for an increasingly detailed hierarchy of models of experiment. In particular, as more and more aspects of the experimental setup are formalized, eventually a model of the experimenter herself will need to be included. Insofar as the world is approached ever more closely through this progressive formalization of the experiment, it is in the limit of this process, i.e. the foundations of psychology, where the realism debate must be fought. Solamente statistics will never provide a complete analysis of empirical adequacy since its starting point, the data, is always infected by the judgments of the experimenter. The ultimate moral here is also that of Hesse (1961). She demonstrates that failures of fit between model and world ("negative analogies") are irrelevant for scientific progress. Rather, it is the "neutral analogies," features of the model for which fit with the world is unknown, which drive theory change. While only models that exhibit both positive and neutral analogies are apt for a realism debate, it is not the business of science to generate such models. Crucially, models with negative analogies can play a productive role in scientific reasoning so long as the scientist keeps track of internal relations between positive, negative, and neutral analogies. Thus, the ultimate locus for assessing the theory---world relationship is in the scientist's judgments about the status of different aspects of the model. A Synthesis: Both Suppes and Hesse locate the theory---world relation relevant for understanding scientific method in the mind of the scientist. If, as in Suppes' original program, philosophical questions are to be analysed in terms of model relations, the relevant models are psychological models of the scientist's ideas (or mental representations) of the theory and of the world, and the pertinent relation between them is her assessment of their similarity. For Suppes, these psychological models complete that model of the experiment that most closely approaches the world; for Hesse, they connect stages in a theory's development, illuminating scientific progress. The relation of fit between theory and world here is assessed in the judgment of the scientist, just as in the post--- Giere modelling literature; on this view, however, the original SV program does not rest on a mistaken understanding of models, nor is its formal component misguided. Rather, the formal analysis of the relation between data and theory models continues to be important in the foundations of statistics, but its importance as a response to the realism question rests on the role of data and theory models in the reasoning of scientists themselves. This reasoning may also involve the manipulation and comparison of mental representations that, while they may be studied formally, may not precisely mirror the mathematical structures of theory as presented in textbooks or analysed by statisticians.

36) Francesca Pero – The Role of Epistemic Stances within the Semantic View

The semantic view rises in the Sixties as an analysis on the structure of scientific theories. In fifty years it has both replaced the Syntactic View and established itself as the orthodox view on scientific theories. In this paper an assessment of the reasons for the success of the semantic view is provided. The guideline for the assessment is obtained by merging the general stances presented by van Fraassen (1987) and Shapiro (1983) on, respectively, the task of philosophy of science and how such a task should be accomplished. As it turns out, the role played within the semantic analysis of theories by epistemic stances, whether realist or antirealist, should be severely reconsidered. Van Fraassen repeatedly presents as the “foundational question par excellence” of philosophy of science the one concerning the structure of theories (1980; 1987; 1989). Van Fraassen also suggests that such a question should be kept distinct from issues concerning theories as objects of epistemic attitudes (such as realism and anti-realism). As for Shapiro, he claims that philosophy of science cannot be understood as isolated from the practice of science. Therefore, any inquiry concerning science should count in scientific practice as a crucial element for its development. Assuming the tenability of these two stances, in this paper I argue in favor of the following claims as reasons for the success of the semantic view as an analysis of scientific theories: the semantic view (i) provides a realistic answer to the right question: what is a scientific theory ? ; (ii) provides such an answer in the correct manner, i.e., remaining epistemologically neutral; (iii) acknowledges scientific practice as crucial for dealing with (i) and (ii). With few notable exceptions (Worrall, 1984; Cartwright et al., 1995; Morrison, 2007; Halvorson, 2012), the semantic view is widely accepted as the orthodox view on the structure of scientific theories. It is not possible to identify the semantic approach with a univocal view, since its formulations are many (Suppes, 1967; van Fraassen, 1970; Giere, 1988; Suppe, 1989; da Costa and French, 1990; van Fraassen, 2008). However, as a program of analysis – whose origin is to be traced back to Beth (1949), although officially identified with the

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work by Suppes (1960) – the semantic view fixes two tasks to be fulfilled. The first task is to provide a formal analysis of theories. The second task is to provide an analysis of theories as regarded in the actual practice of science. Both the tasks are accomplished by introducing the notion of models, generally conceived as Tarskian set-theoretical structures (see Tarski, 1953). Notwithstanding the wide literature on the different formulations of the semantic view and on its potential consistency with either realist or anti-realist stances, a systematic analysis both of its significance and of the reasons for its orthodoxy status is yet to be provided. The aim of this paper is to provide such an analysis and, in order to do that, I mean to deploy van Fraassen's and Shapiro's insights concerning philosophy of science. Van Fraassen claims that as the task of any “philosophy of X” is to make sense of X, so philosophy of science is an attempt to make sense of science and, elliptically, of scientific theories (1980, p. 663). This task, van Fraassen adds, is carried out by tackling two questions. The first question concerns what a theory is per se (“internal question"). This is the question par excellence for the philosophy of science insofar as answering it is preliminary to, and independent of, tackling issues concerning the epistemic attitude to be endorsed towards the content of a theory. These issues fall under the second question which indeed concerns theories as objects for epistemic attitudes (“external question"). Van Fraassen's remarks can be consistently supplemented with Shapiro's view on how a philosophical analysis should be carried out. Shapiro advocates the necessity for any “philosophy of X” not to be “isolated from the practice of X” (1983, p. 525). He explicitly refers to scientific explanation, mentioning that reducing explanation to a mere description of a target system does not suffice to justify in virtue of what the abstract description relates to the object described. Without such a justification is indeed impossible to account for the explanatory success of theory. Only referring to the practice of theory construction allows to account for how science contributes to knowledge. The semantic view evidently deals with the foundational question of philosophy of science. As the syntactic view did, the semantic view aims at providing a picture of scientific theories. However, unlike the syntactic view, the semantic view succeeds in providing a realistic picture of theories. The syntactic view has been driven in its formulation by the (anti-realist) Positivistic credo, according to which a programmatic goal for the analysis of theories is to provide only a rational reconstruction of the latter, i.e., a reconstruction which omits the scientists' actions and focuses only on their result (i.e., theories. See Carnap, 1955, p. 42). The semantic view, on the other hand, preserving its neutrality with respect to any preexistent school of thought, whether realist or anti- realist, succeeds in providing a realistic image of scientific theories which is obtained by focusing on “how science really works" (Suppe, 2000, p. 114). As a final point, I mean to show that the suggested guideline for justifying the success of the semantic view can also be employed as a demarcation criterion for establishing the tenability of the available formulations of the semantic view. Using the guideline as a demarcation criterion, I show that the partial-structure approach (da Costa and French, 1990; Bueno and French, 2011) fails at being semantic for two reasons. Firstly, it violates the epistemic neutrality presupposed by the semantic view. Secondly, the partial-structures approach falls short of integrating the image of theories which it provides with the actual scientific practice. E [5]: Scientific Realism and the Social Sciences

37) David Spurret – Physicalism as an empirical hypothesis

Physicalism is typically understood as the naturalistically motivated metaphysical thesis that everything is (in some sense) physical. Difficulties accompany specifying each part of this thesis – the ‘is’, the ‘everything’ and the ‘physical’. Here I focus on the third, that of saying what counts as physical. A common complaint, variously articulated, has it that physicalism faced a dilemma. One the one hand, ‘physical’ could be tied to current physics, in which case on inductive grounds (given the history of revision in physical theory) physics, and so physicalism, is false. On the other hand, ‘physical’ could be tied to some ideal future theory, but in that case physicalism becomes trivially true. An additional challenge is articulated in van Fraassen (2002). He endorses a version of the above dilemma, and concludes that what he calls materialism should be understood as a ‘stance’ – a freely chosen philosophical orientation not amenable to rational justification. (Those who think that it is rationally justified are, he claims, guilty of a kind of ‘false consciousness’.) Although van Fraassen’s account of the dilemma contains nothing significantly new, his posing of it within a broadly empiricist orientation is a useful way of sharpening some of the issues, because empiricists tend to be both impressed by science and wary of metaphysics. Here I offer a semi-novel account of the physical that responds to the dilemma supposedly facing physicalism in a way sensitive to van Fraassen’s empiricist challenge. That is, I defend an empiricism-friendly statement (a) of what to count as physical, and (b) of a case that the scope of physics thus understood is uniquely co-extensive with the

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empirical, a property that is not shared with other domains of inquiry. These points are connected. I argue that it does justice to a body of historical scientific achievements in several fields (including chemistry and biology, as well as physics itself) to say that science discovered that there was one science with unrestricted empirical scope, and this science was, approximately, physics. (I say ‘approximately’ because some parts of what is institutionally called physics are recognized to be special sciences.) This discovery was contingent to the extent that alternative possibilities (in which all sciences were special, or where some science other than physics was not special) have been taken seriously in the history of science, and abandoned because of scientific discoveries. If this is correct, it explains the plausibility of some versions of what has come to be known as the ‘via negativa’ account of the physical (Spurrett and Papineau 1999). This proposal defuses the dilemma by stipulating that ‘physics’ is a causally complete science, and excludes (for example) fundamental mental properties. By being causally complete, physics thus understood is appropriate for motivating arguments for supervenience, reduction, identity (and other solutions to the ‘is’ problem). And by excluding, for example, the fundamentally mental, such physicalisms are not trivial insofar as future scientific discovery could in principle falsify them. Considerations from common sense, and the history of science, support excluding fundamental mental properties from the one science of unrestricted empirical scope (physics), as they do excluding biological properties, chemical properties and a variety of others. The form of physicalism I describe here also suggests a way of developing the via negativa response to the alleged dilemma. It is science itself that identifies (and occasionally revises) the catalogue of special sciences to be taken seriously, where ‘special’ is understood in contrast to physics. This catalogue motivates naturalist (and non-arbitrary) variants of the via negativa (for specific sciences), and helps explain why some particular historical episodes are distinctively important for making physicalism plausible. Finally, as an empirical thesis of a certain kind, a response to van Fraassen is natural. Physicalism is a thesis motivated by the history and state of science. It is good fallibilism to recognise that future evidence may motivate revisions, but bad philosophy to abandon a view motivated by so much evidence simply because we are not infallible. References Spurrett, D. & Papineau, D. (1999) "A note on the completeness of 'physics'", Analysis, 59:25-29. Van Fraassen, B. (2002) The Empirical Stance, Yale University Press. F [6]: Anti-Realism

38) Moti Mizrahi – The Problem of Unconceived Objections and Scientific Antirealism

According to Stanford (2006, 20), “the history of scientific inquiry itself offers a straightforward rationale for thinking that there typically are alternatives to our best theories equally well confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time.” Based on the PUA, Stanford advances an inductive argument he calls the “New Induction” on the History of Science, which Magnus (2010, 807) reconstructs as follows: A New Induction on the History of Science NI-1 The historical record reveals that past scientists typically failed to conceive of alternatives to their favorite, then-successful theories. NI-2 So, present scientists fail to conceive of alternatives to their favorite, now- successful theories. NI-3 Therefore, we should not believe our present scientific theories. If Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science were cogent, then it would show that what Psillos (2006, 135) calls “the epistemic thesis of scientific realism,” i.e., that “mature and predictively successful scientific theories are well-confirmed and approximately true” (cf. Psillos 1999, xix), is not worthy of belief. Now, Mizrahi (2013) argues that there is a problem parallel to the PUA that applies to Western analytic philosophy. As Mizrahi (2013) writes: In much the same way that “the history of scientific inquiry itself offers a straightforward rationale for thinking that there typically are alternatives to our best theories equally well confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time” (Stanford 2006, p. 20), the history of philosophical inquiry offers a straightforward rationale for thinking that there typically are serious objections to our best philosophical theories, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time. In other words, the historical record shows that philosophers have typically failed to conceive of serious objections to their well-defended philosophical theories. As the historical record also shows, however, other philosophers subsequently conceived of serious objections to those well-defended philosophical theories (original emphasis). If Stanford’s PUA provides the basis for a New Induction on the History of Science, then Mizrahi’s PUO provides the basis for a New Induction on the History of Philosophy.

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Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy, then, runs as follows (Mizrahi 2013): A New Induction on the History of Philosophy NIP-1 The historical record reveals that past analytic philosophers typically failed to conceive of serious objections to their favorite, then-defensible theories. NIP-2 So, present analytic philosophers fail to conceive of serious objections to their favorite, now-defensible theories. NIP-3 Therefore, we should not believe our present philosophical theories. Accordingly, since an alternative scientific theory T2 that accounts for the phenomena just as well as T1 amounts to a serious objection against T1 (Mizrahi 2013), Stanford’s PUA is actually a PUO for scientific theories. Since empirically viable alternatives to then-well-confirmed scientific theories that turned out to be equally confirmed by the evidence amount to serious objections to those scientific theories, Stanford’s PUA is a PUO for scientific theories. Accordingly, the parallels between Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science and Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy can be seen as follows: NI-1 [/NIP-1] The historical record reveals that past scientists [/philosophers] typically failed to conceive of alternatives [/serious objections] to their favorite, then-successful theories. NI-2 [/NIP-2] So, present scientists [/philosophers] fail to conceive of alternatives [/serious objections] to their favorite, now-successful theories. NI-3 [/NIP-3] Therefore, we should not believe our present scientific [/philosophical] theories. Given Mizrahi’s (2013) New Induction on the History of Philosophy, I argue that scientific antirealists who endorse Stanford’s PUA and his New Induction on the History of Science face the following problem: if Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science is a cogent argument for scientific antirealism, then Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy is a cogent argument for philosophical antirealism. If that is the case, however, then it follows that scientific antirealism is not worthy of belief, since scientific antirealism is a philosophical theory. More explicitly:

(1) Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science is a cogent argument for scientific antirealism. [Assumption for reductio]

(2) If Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science is a cogent argument for scientific antirealism, then Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy is a cogent argument for philosophical antirealism. [Premise]

(3) ∴ Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy is a cogent argument forphilosophical antirealism. [from (1) & (2) by modus ponens]

(4) If Mizrahi’s New Induction on the History of Philosophy is a cogent argument for philosophical antirealism, then, if scientific antirealism is a philosophical theory, we should not believe it. [Premise]

(5) ∴ If scientific antirealism is a philosophical theory, we should not believe it. [from (3) & (4) by modus ponens]

(6) Scientific antirealism is a philosophical theory. [Premise] (7) ∴ We should not believe scientific antirealism. [from (5) & (6) by modus ponens] (8) ∴ Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science is a cogent argument for scientific antirealism but

we should not believe scientific antirealism. [from (1) & (7) by conjunction] Of course, scientific antirealists who endorse Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science cannot accept (8), since (8) says that they should not believe the conclusion of a cogent argument for their own position. References

Magnus, P. D. (2010). Inductions, red herrings, and the best explanation for the mixed record of science. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 61, 803-819. Mizrahi, M. (2013b). The problem of unconceived objections. Argumentation. DOI 10.1007/s10503-013-9305-z. Psillos, S. (1999). Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge. Psillos, S. (2006). Thinking about the ultimate argument for realism. In C. Cheyne and J. Worrall (eds.), Rationality & Reality: Essays in Honour of Alan Musgrave (pp. 133-156). Dordrecht: Springer. Stanford, P. K. (2006). Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. New York: Oxford University Press.

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39) Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem – The Possibility of an Epistemic Realism

In this paper the possibility of ‘rescuing’ realism by suggesting an epistemic account of truth, seemingly against all metaphysical realist inclinations, is explored. A novel ‘mix’ of what traditionally would have been called anti-realism, and the sentiment behind current variations of selective realism, is suggested to be the best way forward for realists.

The anti-realism aspect of what is suggested here necessarily comes in, because of traditional realist attitudes towards epistemic accounts of truth (e.g. compare Niiniluoto 1999). The account proposed here is one of truth as warranted belief based loosely on Peirce’s view of truth as method. The selective realism strand of the ‘mix’ is the result of the suggestion that components of theories that can absorb consequences of science-theory interaction (i.e. results of testing and application of theories), while still functioning in the theory, are the components determining the stance to be taken towards the theories involved. The selection of such components rests on reference as the mechanism that ‘unveils’ the truth about reality, in the following sense: Reference claims are not existential claims that can be true or false, but are rather epistemic tracking devices, recording various encounters between aspects of reality and scientific theory. Reference claims contain descriptions of causal properties that can be adapted according to the outcome of empirical (reality)-theoretical (science) encounters, while remaining the properties in virtue of which postulated entities continue to play the same causal role ascribed to them before the properties were adapted. And it is such ‘evolutionary progressive’ descriptions of these (selected) properties that reflects the quality of evidence for ‘believing’ theories at a given time.

This ‘mix’ of anti-realism and selective realism is developed into an epistemic, non-standard version of realism, entitled naturalised realism. The argument for naturalised realism rests on the following ten tenets: Science is about an independently existing reality, and realism is about science such that its claims as a philosophy of science are compatible with the nature and the history of science; the driver of scientific progress is revision; scientific progress is not linear or convergent; the unit of appraisal for naturalised realism is a consiliated network of theories; continuity in science is a meta-issue which can be found in terms of methodological continuity; naturalised realism is an epistemology of science, and the epistemological framework for naturalised realism is fallibilism; the criterion for determining (realist) stances towards the status of the content of science is the quality of ‘evolutionary progressive’ interaction between the experimental and theoretical levels of science; an epistemic account of truth which defines truth as warranted assertability is suggested which is unpacked in terms of truth as method (where the ‘method’ at issue is the experimental method); relations of ‘historied’ reference are offered as epistemological scorekeepers of what is revealed about nature as ‘true’ (i.e. warrantedly assertable) through the course of science; and finally, the traditional scientific realism debate is collapsed into a continuum of stances towards the status of scientific theories.

In the first section of the paper it is argued that the possibilities for traditional realism being validated by contemporary science have now basically disappeared. In addition, in considering some of the classical arguments against traditional metaphysical realism, and the responses open to the metaphysical realist, an argument is set up for considering the classical dichotomy between realism and anti-realism to dissolve into a continuum of possible stances towards theories, depending on the quality of evidence available at various times of the development of investigation of a certain aspect of reality. It is explained that it is in this sense that the version of realism offered here is ‘naturalised’, as the goal is to devise a form of realism that mimics the processes and course of science as much as possible in order to find the best way of evaluating the results of such a fluid, multi-dimensional, ever evolving enterprise as science is. As ‘evolutionary progressiveness’ is suggested as the only effective criterion for realists to use (rather than ‘no miracles’-arguments in terms of truth and success), the second section of the paper contains a definition and discussion of this concept.

In the third section of the paper an epistemic account of truth is unpacked and the link between reference and truth is explored. It is traditionally claimed that ‘true’ theories ‘refer’, meaning that true claims about unobservable entities imply these entities ‘really exist’. The naturalised realist wants to dissolve the link between truth and existence, and thus has to define truth in a non-semantic manner, as existence claims are not seen as either true or false in any semantic sense. Rather than giving existence claims a truth value, in naturalised realism the focus is on using such referential claims to monitor how the self-correcting methods of science directly impact on scientific progress, in the sense that relations of reference are epistemic score keeping devices of what science reveals on the grounds of evolutionary progressive experimental and theoretical combinations, rather than indicators of science proving ontological existence of the entities it postulates.

Thus rather than claiming with a Niiniluotian critical realist that “theoretical statements in science … may be strictly speaking false but nevertheless ‘truthlike’ or ‘approximately true’” (Niiniluoto 1999, 12-13), the naturalised realist claims that theoretical statements may be ‘true’ if they are warranted given the sum of knowledge about the particular aspect of reality under investigation at the time; and whether or not theoretical statements are warranted, depends on the quality of experimental evidence and of theoretical evolutionary progressiveness available at the time. Truth is assembled as science progresses through revisions and confirmations. As science interacts with the world, the justification for our beliefs in its theories deepens according to the evolutionary progressiveness of such theories.

In a naturalised realist account truth then becomes (the result of) a dynamic process of relation-building rather than a (static) property of sentences, because what is of interest to naturalised realists is the mechanism that effects the unveiling of ‘truths’ to various degrees - and that tells us better of what is that it is - at various times. And here it is argued that this mechanism is the evolutionary progressiveness of theories as portrayed or captured by relations of reference supervening on it.The naturalised realist claims that in order to make any kind of meaningful contribution to views on truth in science, what is needed is practical proof that the theories employed by science somehow hook onto the world – and the suggestion here is that this can be determined by checking theory-world interaction in the evolutionary progressive sense of the word – and ultimately by pragmatising semantics (compare Hintikka (1975)) such that it collapses into epistemology.

Science makes progress not because its different revelations are cumulative or converging to ‘the true’ image of the system at issue (contrary to Peirce’s (1955) depiction of truth in How to Make our Ideas Clear), but rather because of a much more subtle thread that joins the outcomes of different investigations of the same system together. This thread is the self-corrective

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method of science (here in line with Peirce’s (1955) warning that there is no evidence that everything will converge to a given result in Pragmatism in Retrospect). This method crystallises in what is learned through interaction between theories and experiments as the result of testing and subsequent revision and affects a kind of meta-continuity of science’s processes which is much more meaningful that a notion of (static) continuity in terms of accumulation in the trivial sense that theory Tn+1 retains all that theory Tn can explain and predict.

In the final section of the paper the potential of naturalised realism satisfying the demand recently made by writers such as Ruetsche (2011) and Chang (2012) that realism must be pragmatic and pluralist is explored. It is concluded that the only way in which to be a realist, given the true nature and current content of science, is not to be one! Bibliography Chang, H. (2012) Is Water H2O? Evidence, Pluralism and Realism. Dordrecht, Springer. Hintikka, J. (1975) the Intentions of Intentionality. Dordrecht, D. Reidel. Niiniluoto, I. (1999) Critical Scientific Realism. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Peirce, C.S. (1955). How to make our Ideas clear. In Justus Buchler (Ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce. New York: Dover

Publications. Peirce, C.S. (1955). Pragmatism in Retrospect. In Justus Buchler (Ed.), Philosophical Writings of Peirce. New York: Dover

Publications. Ruetsche, L .(2011). Interpreting Quantum Theories. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

40) Yafeng Shan – What entities exist

Many scientific realists believe in the existence of some entities (e.g. electrons, atoms). Although they differ in believing what specific entities exist and why those entities exist, it is a minimal account of scientific entity realism they all accept. The central doctrine is that there are some scientifically studied entities out there. The so-called “scientifically studied entities” include all the entities, which are either postulated by some scientific theories, or experimentally manipulated in the scientific practice. There are two reasons why I use the term “scientifically studied entities” rather than more familiar ones like “theoretical entities”, “postulated entities” and “unobservable entities”. First, I try to avoid the notoriously demarcation problems like how to make a clear distinction between theoretical and observable entities. Second I won’t like to identify all entities in a theory-biased way. Not all entities studied by scientists are postulated or well defined by theory. There are two well-known arguments for this doctrine. First is the no miracles argument (NMA). According to the NMA, the central terms of our best scientific theory genuinely refer because of the success of that theory. (The success criterion of the Entity-Existence) The second is the experimental argument (EA). According to the EA, the reality of an entity is confirmed when we can understand its causal properties by setting up devices that use those causal properties to reliably interfere in other more hypothetical parts of nature. (The manipulatability criterion) These are two realist criteria to evaluate whether some entities exist, although not all scientific entity realists accept both. Nor do I suggest that for scientific entity realists, an entity exists if and only if these two criteria are fulfilled. However, it is a fact that the success criterion and the manipulatibility criterion are among those most famous and widely accepted entity realist criteria. The “Electron” is a favourite example for scientific entity realists. For them, it seems uncontroversial that electrons exist since either of the two criteria is fulfilled. However, it is surprising to observe that “gene”, as a very important biological concept, was not widely discussed in this context. So, a natural question occurs: Do genes exist? Or, we may ask it more specifically. Is the term “gene” the central term in our current best scientific theory? Are genes experimentally manipulatible? The answer to the first question is a definite “yes”! Since 1920s, the term “gene” has been one of the central terms in biological sciences. The answer to the second question is also positive. “Genes” are widely manipulated in various experiments. A straightforward example is the highly successful transgenetic technology. Since “genes” definitely fulfil the two realist criteria, it is easy for scientific entity realists to conclude that genes exist. However, for sceptics, “genes” are dubious. Scepticism arises from the variously inconsistent and complex usages of the term “gene”. The concept “gene” is context-sensitive. There are multiple co-existing conceptions of the gene in contemporary biological sciences. Roughly speaking, there are three distinct concepts of the gene: instrumental, nominal and postgenomic. The instrumental genes are factors in a model of the transmission of a heritable phenotype, or in a population genetic model of a changing population. The instrumental concept of the gene is still widely employed nowadays in the fields like evolutionary genetics and medical genetics. The nominal gene is a specific DNA sequence beginning with a start codon and ending with a stop codon. It is a practical tool, allowing stable communication between bioscientists in a wide range fields grounded in well-defined sequences of nucleotides. The post-genomic gene is the “image of the gene product in the DNA”, no matter how fractured and distributed that image might be, and no matter how much supplementation the transcribed sequences requires to determine the sequence of elements in the product. According to this conception, the relationship between DNA and gene product

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is indirect. The gene is a flexible entity. It should be noted that these three conceptions are fundamentally distinct. The instrumental gene cannot be reduced to the nominal gene, while the post-genomic gene challenges the conventional assumptions about the relationship between genome structure and function, and between genotype and phenotype, which is crucial to the instrumental gene. Moreover, there are irreconcilable tensions between the instrumental, nominal and post-genomic conceptions of the gene. For example, the critical property of the instrumental gene is a unit of recombination – a segment of chromosome which regularly recombines with other segments in meiosis and which is short enough to survive episodes of meiosis for selection to act upon it as a unit, while it is not always the unit of genetic function, that is the nominal gene. Given these different conceptions of the gene, does it mean that the question “do genes exist” should be reformulated as the following three questions: Do instrumental genes exist? Do nominal genes exist? Do post-genomic genes exist? If so, there is no problem about the ontology of “genes” any more. The question “do genes exist” is thus misleading. It is implausible to ask this question at all! Similarly, it is untenable to ask “do tubes exist?” without specifying whether “tubes” in the question refer to the vehicles of London underground or the experimental tubes in the laboratory. Therefore, the answer to the question about the ontology of genes is not as straightforward as some realists might think. It is sufficient to conclude that it is controversial whether genes exist. What is more, there is a dilemma for the realists who contend the existence of certain scientifically studied entities. On the one hand, if genes do exist, it seems that neither two criteria is a sufficient condition. Even if genes fulfil the two realist criteria, it is still controversial whether genes exist. One the other hand, if genes do not exist, then the realists have to make a further distinction between the entities like electrons and those like genes, both of which fulfill two realist criteria. In addition, there is another serious problem for scientific entity realism. If the sceptics are right, there is an irreconcilable tension between multiple conceptions of the gene. There is no unitary account of the gene. Then “do genes exist” becomes a pseudo-question. Thus, “genes” cannot be the subject of the ontological problem. In other words, it is evident that there must be a distinction between entities like electrons, which can be the subject of the realism/antirealism debate, and entities, which cannot be the subject of the realism/antirealism debate. Unfortunately, neither of realist criteria prohibits asking the questions like “do genes exist”. Therefore, I argue that this is a serious question that the realist must address: what entities can be the subject of the ontological problem?

41) Daniel Kodaj – From conventionalism to phenomenalism

The paper argues that conventionalist1 puzzles about spacetime are implicit arguments for phenomenalism. Roughly, the claim is that the conventionalist puzzles arise iff we presuppose that spacetime can be regarded “from outside,” stepping out of intraworld spatial experience (I’ll try to make this idea clearer as we go along). Conventionalists solve the puzzles by arguing that the choice between the empirically equivalent alternatives that arise is a matter of convention, while realists deploy inference to the best explanation and various piecemeal arguments against specific conventionalist scenarios. I’ll argue that phenomenalism gives a simple and unified solution to all relevant puzzles. The paper discusses six conventionalist puzzles. The first one, (P1), comes from Reichenbach via Putnam: Reichenbach used to begin his lectures on the philosophy of space ad time in a way which brought an air of paradox to the subject. He would take two objects of markedly different size, say an ash tray and a table, situated in different parts of the room, and ask the students ‘How do you know that one is bigger than the other?’ (Putnam 1975: 155) As Putnam tells us, Reichenbach rebutted common-sense answers to this question by claiming that they all presuppose some arbitrary coordinative principle such as the thesis that objects are not uniformly distorted as we move about, that light rays travel in straight lines etc. The five other puzzles are: (P2) Helmholtz’s puzzle about a race of beings who live on the surface of a convex mirror but believe they live in a flat space (Helmholtz 1881). (P3) Poincaré’s puzzle about a race of beings who live on a disc but believe that they live on an infinite plane because they slow down when they approach the edge (Poincaré 1952). (P4) Reichenbach’s puzzle about a race of beings who live in the 2D reflection of a 3D surface and think that their world contains a dome (Reichenbach 1958: 11–13). 1 By “conventionalism,” I mean the kind of underdetermination thesis that is often associated with Reichenbach. As Ben-Menahem (2006: Ch.1) points out, there is another brand of conventionalism, which is a thesis about necessary truth. I emphasize that my paper has nothing to do with this second brand of conventionalism. (P5) The conventionality of the one-way velocity of light in special relativity. (P6) Field vs. geometric interpretations of general relativity.

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These puzzles differ in dialectical value. (P1)–(P4) are fanciful scenarios that are not directly relevant to any serious physical theory, but these puzzles are nonetheless useful because they make the conventionalist point very vivid. (P5) and (P6), on the other hand, are directly relevant to the interpretation of real physics, but they are extremely technical. My strategy will be to use the easier puzzles to get the basic idea through, then I’ll turn to (P5) and (P6). The gist of my argument is that these puzzles arise if and only if we reify spacetime into an object which can be looked at “from outside,” either literally from another spatiotemporal vantage point, as in (P2) and (P4), or by extending a metric concept related to intraworld spatial experience to states of affairs that are not accessible in the context of intraworld spatial experience, as in (P1), (P3), (P5), and (P6). To portray (P1)–(P6) as variations on a single underlying theme, I introduce the idea of internal and external metrics: The internal metric of world W: IMWP (x, S) = a number that expresses the magnitude of x’s spatiotemporal property P (in some standard unit) as measured by a normal observer in situation S (where S is complex state of affairs that describes the environment of x and the observer). The external metric of world W: EMWP(x, S) = a number that expresses x’s spatiotemporal property P (in some standard unit) as x is in situation S. I argue that (P1)–(P6) are all based on the presupposition that for some spatiotemporal property P, there are possible worlds with the same internal P-metric as the actual internal P-metric but with an external metric that is deviant in the following sense: Deviant external metrics: EMWP is deviant EMWP involves deviant excess structure =df

(1) For some x, S and S* (i) S* is a proper part of S (ii) IMWP (x, S) = k IMWP(x, S*) (k is a real number) (iii) EMWP (x, S) k EMWP(x, S*)

or (2) For some S, S is in the domain of EMWP and S isn’t in the domain of IMWP. For example, in (P3), we have an internal metric according to two intervals can appear to have the same length while being, according to the external metric, of different length (type (1) deviant metric). In (P2), we have an internal metric whose domain does not include the situation of measuring an object on the surface of the mirror from outside the mirror (type (2) deviant metric). The paper shows that all puzzles fit this schema, and I relate the schema to technical discussions of (P5) (Malament 1977) and (P6) (Ben-Menahem 2006: 85–127). I argue that the conventionalist puzzles only arise if we presuppose that there are external metrics, and I claim that if we deny the possibility of external metrics, then we are led to phenomenalism. I relate this idea to John Foster’s (1982) arguments against realism about spacetime. References Ben-Menahem, Yemima (2006): Conventionalism. Cambridge University Press. Foster, John (1982): The Case for Idealism. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Helmholtz, Hermann (1881): On the origin and significance of geometrical axioms. In his Popular Lectures, Longman, Green, and Co., 27–72. Malament, David (1977): Causal theories of time and the conventionality of simultaneity. Noûs 11, 293–300. Poincaré, Henri (1952): Science and Hypothesis. Dover Publications. Putnam, Hilary (1975): The refutation of conventionalism. In his Mind, Language, and Reality, Cambridge University Press, 153–191. Reichenbach, Hans (1958): The Philosophy of Space & Time. Dover Publications.

42) Fabio Sterpetti – Optimality models and scientific realism

Optimality models (OM) have recently received much attention by philosophers (Rice 2013, 2012; Potochnik 2010, 2009; Baron 2013). In fact, OM have been used by platonist philosophers of mathematics in order to try to establish the existence of mathematical entities, and by scientific realist philosophers of science to try to secure the genuineness of non-causal scientific explanations. This relationship between Mathematical Platonism (MP) and Scientific Realism (SR) will be analyzed with regard to the OM. After describing the salient features of OM,1 it will be analyzed if OM can be considered to succeed in being an example of non causal scientific explanation which is acceptable from both a platonist and a realist point of view. This amounts to state if SR can be safely conjunct with MP. The answer will be in the negative, because what should allow the realist to accept non causal

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explanations as scientific explanations will be shown to be either non compatible with a realist position, or inadequate in order to justify such acceptance in a non circular way. 1 Following Rice 2013, p. 3-4, OM can been briefly described as follows: “Optimality models are distinguished by their use of a mathematical technique called Optimization Theory, whose goal is to identify which values of some control variable(s) will optimize the value of some design variable(s) in light of some design constraints (…). An optimality model specifies a constrained set of possible strategies known as the strategy set. The design variables to be optimized constitute the model‟s currency. An optimality model also specifies what it means to optimize these design variables (e.g. should a design variable be maximized or minimized). This is referred to as the model‟s optimization criterion. Once the strategy set and optimization criterion have been identified, an optimality model describes an objective function, which connects each possible strategy to values of the design variable(s) to be optimized. (…). The strategy that optimizes the model‟s criterion, in light of various constraints and tradeoffs, is deemed the optimal strategy. By mathematically representing the important constraints and tradeoffs, an optimality model can demonstrate why a particular strategy is the best available solution.” Optimality models and Mathematical Platonism MP‟s main argument, i.e. the Indispensability Argument (IA), rests on the assumption that the indispensable role of mathematics in scientific theories justifies the platonist‟s realist claim about the ontological status of mathematical entities (Bangu 2008). So, the main argument for MP is in some way „parasitic‟ on that for SR, i.e. the No Miracle Argument (NMA) (Psillos 1999). Platonists put pressure on realists because their main argument mirrors and assumes the realist‟s one in such a way that realists cannot avoid to confront with the issue of the nature of mathematics. Many authors have criticized the classical IA, and have argued that mathematics has to be explanatory indispensable in order to be genuinely indispensable, not just being holistically confirmed by the empirical success of the scientific theories in which it appears (Field 1989; Melia 2002; Baker 2009). So, given that platonists conceive of mathematical entities as mind- independent abstract entities, and abstract entities are normally understood as „non-spatiotemporally located‟ and „causally inert‟ (Balaguer 2009), it becomes very important for the platonists to show that there are scientific explanations: 1) which account for natural phenomena even if they are non causal; 2) in which the explanatory indispensable role is played by mathematics. Some authors claim that mathematics is indispensable even in such a stronger way, i.e. that there are genuine mathematical indispensable explanations of physical phenomena (Baker 2009; Colyvan 2001; Batterman 2010). The problem for the platonists is that although a number of examples of such mathematical explanations have been given, they have until recently lacked a “general strategy for predicting the prevalence of this kind of explanation in science,” but if OM can be considered as a general class of mathematical explanations of natural phenomena, mathematical explanations “are likely to be commonplace because of the centrality of optimality models to science” (Baron 2013, p. 2-3). So, given that OM are widely used in science, if the explanations deriving from the use of OM could be interpreted as mathematical explanations of natural phenomena, platonists would have solved the problem of demonstrating the relevance of the cases in which mathematics is explanatory indispensable in science. Optimality models and Scientific Realism Scientific realists have been interested in OM because they have been interested in showing that non causal explanations are a genuine and acceptable kind of scientific explanation for a realist. Realists have faced many objections to their classical position, i.e. the idea that we can derive the truth of scientific theories from their success, and that truth means correspondence to the world, so they have become aware of the fact that some important features of the scientific theorizing cannot be accounted for in a traditional realist way. One of such features is the role of models in science. In fact: 1) models are normally intended as not being interpretable as literally true, given that they involve at least some form of idealization (Bokulich 2011); 2) models are generally conceived of as mathematical models, and so the problem of the relation between models and the world amounts to the problem of the relation between mathematics and the world (Bueno 2011). Moreover, many realists support the semantic view of theories. This makes the problem of the nature of the models central for the realists. In fact, if following the semantic view, “theories are taken to be collections of models,” and models are considered as abstract objects, then “theories traffic in abstract entities much more widely than is often assumed” (Psillos 2011, p. 4). The semantic view clearly equates

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the abstractness of mathematical entities with that of scientific theories. For example, Suppes states that: “the meaning of the concept of model is the same in mathematics and the empirical sciences” (Suppes 1960, p. 12). If the realist wants to claim that the scientific theories are true, and scientific theories are intended as classes of mathematical models, then it seems that the realist has to embrace MP. So, given that OM are a kind of mathematical model widely accepted in science, if the explanations deriving from the use of OM could be interpreted as non causal scientific explanations, realists would have solved the problem of demonstrating that their conception of reality is broad enough to be compatible with the scientific practice. Difficulties for the realist The problem for the realist is that she has now to account for the applicability of mathematics in a way compatible with SR. It seems there are two main possibilities for the realist: 1) to show that relying on explanatoriness consideration is a valid tool to assess the validity of a scientific explanation (Glymour 1980); 2) to show that the deepest scientific explanations are not causal, that they are mathematical, and that they can be successfully trusted because mathematics is able to describe the modal structure of the universe (Lange 2013). These two options will be analyzed in general, and then specifically tested in the context of the OM, and will be shown to be deeply related, and both inadequate. In fact, it can be shown that explanatoriness considerations cannot be equate to confirmation in order to assess a scientific theory. The problem is that the centrality that the „empirical success‟ seems to have for the realist‟s (and even for the platonist‟s) arguments, cannot be coherently accounted for anymore in the realist frame if non causal explanations and explanatoriness considerations are accepted in such frame (Sober 1999; Zamora Bonilla 2003). The idea that mathematics can tell us what is necessary rests on an assumption which is pythagorean in character, that is that the modal structure of the world is mathematical, and so that mathematics can reveal us such structure (Lange 2013). But this is exactly what the realist should demonstrate and not just assume, in order to justify the acceptability of a mathematical (non causal) explanation as a scientific explanation. The problem for such position is that it is not able to give an account for such supposed capability of mathematics in a naturalistic way. In fact, it seems there are three available ways to justify such capacity of mathematics: 1) from the success of the previously used mathematical models, but this kind of inference would amount to a form of the NMA, and would be prone to the same objections; 2) from a non naturalistic point of view, but this option should not be palatable for those scientific realists who support even some sort of naturalism;

3) from a naturalistic point of view, relying on an evolutionary account of the human abilities which give rise to mathematics, but such position can be shown to be circular.

So, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is no easy way for a scientific realist to use OM in order to show she is able to embrace MP and to make her position coherent. References Baker, A. (2009): Mathematical Explanation in Science. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60, 611–633 Balaguer, M. (2009): Realism and anti-realism in mathematics. In: Gabbay, D., Thagard, P., Woods, J. (eds.) Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4, Philosophy of Mathematics, 117–151. Elsevier, Amsterdam Bangu, S.I. (2008): Inference to the best explanation and mathematical realism. Synthese 160, 13–20 Baron, S. (2013): Optimisation and mathematical explanation: doing the Lévy Walk. Synthese, DOI 10.1007/s11229-013-0284-2 Batterman, R.W. (2010): On the Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Empirical Science. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61, 1–25 Bokulich, A. (2011): How scientific models can explain. Synthese 180, 33– 45 Bueno, O. (2011): Structural Empiricism, Again. In: Bokulich, P., Bokulich,

A. (eds.) Scientific Structuralism, 81–l03, Springer Dordrecht Colyvan, M. (2001): The Indispensability of Mathematics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Field, H. (1989): Realism, Mathematics and Modality. Blackwell, Oxford Glymour, G. (1980): Explanations, Tests, Unity and Necessity. Noûs 14, 31– 50 Lange, M. (2013): What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical?. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64, 485-511 Melia, J. (2002): Response to Colyvan. Mind 111, 75–79

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Potochnik, A. (2010): Explanatory Independence and Epistemic Interdependence: A Case Study of the Optimality Approach. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61, 213–233 Potochnik, A. (2009): Optimality modeling in a suboptimal world. Biology and Philosophy 24, 183–197 Psillos, S. (2011): Living with the abstract: realism and models. Synthese 180, 3–17 Psillos, S. (1999): Scientific Realism. Routledge, New York Rice, C. (2013): Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation. Noûs, DOI 10.1111/nous.12042 Rice, C. (2012): Optimality explanations: a plea for an alternative approach. Biology and Philosophy 27, 685–703 Sober, E. (1999): Testability. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 73, 47–76 Suppes, P. (1960): A Comparison of the Meaning and Uses of Models in Mathematics and the Empirical Sciences. Synthese 12, 287–301 Zamora Bonilla, J.P. (2003): Meaning and Testability in the Structuralist Theory of Science. Erkenntnis 59, 47–76