Arguments For and Against Scientific Realism

The scientific realism/antirealism in philosophy of science concerns the epistemic status of our best scientific theories and the ontological status of the theoretical posits of those scientific theories. Scientific realists argue that we have good reasons to believe that our best scientific theories are approximately true (or that the theoretical posits of our best scientific theories exist) because those theories are empirically successful, whereas antirealists argue that the empirical success of our best scientific theories does not warrant belief in the approximate truth (or the existence of the theoretical posits) of our best scientific theories  because the history of science is a graveyard of theories that were once successful but were later discarded. The first argument is commonly known as the “miracle argument” or the “no miracles argument” for scientific realism, whereas the second argument is commonly known as the “pessimistic induction” or the “pessimistic meta-induction.” These two arguments have largely dominated the scientific realism/antirealism debate in philosophy of science. However, both realists and antirealists have other arguments in their arsenal. Many of those arguments appeal to the historical of record of science.

The locus classicus of the so-called “miracle argument” is Putnam 1975, whereas the locus classicus of the so-called “pessimistic induction” is Laudan 1981. Psillos 1999 provides a comprehensive defense of scientific realism (see also Leplin 1997 and Sankey 2008), whereas Stanford 2006 provides historical arguments against scientific realism in addition to the pessimistic induction (see also Hesse 1976 and Van Fraassen Bas 1980). More recent discussions of arguments for and against scientific realism include Wray 2018 and Rowbottom 2019. Mizrahi 2020 provides a comprehensive overview of arguments for and against scientific realism.