Realism versus anti-realism: philosophical problem or scientific concern?

被引:0
|
作者
Jesús P. Zamora Bonilla
机构
[1] UNED,Facultad de Filosofía
来源
Synthese | 2019年 / 196卷
关键词
Deflationism; Non-miracle argument; Continuity of reference; Theoretical concepts; Verisimilitude; Unconceived alternatives;
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摘要
The decision whether to have a realist or an anti-realist attitude towards scientific hypotheses is interpreted in this paper as a choice that scientists themselves have to face in their work as scientists, rather than as a ‘philosophical’ problem. Scientists’ choices between realism and instrumentalism (or other types of anti-realism) are interpreted in this paper with the help of two different conceptual tools: a deflationary semantics grounded in the inferentialist approach to linguistic practices developed by some authors (e.g., Sellars, Brandom), and an epistemic utility function that tries to represent the cognitive preferences of scientists. The first tool is applied to two different questions traditionally related to the problem of scientific realism: the non-miracle argument, and the continuity of reference. The second one is applied to the problem of unconceived alternatives, and to the distinction between realist and instrumentalist attitudes towards scientific hypotheses.
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页码:3961 / 3977
页数:16
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