This paper examines the epistemological significance of the present situation of underdetermination in quantum mechanics. After analyzing this underdetermination at three levels---formal, ontological, and methodological---the paper considers implications for a number of variants of the thesis of scientific realism in fundamental physics and reassesses Lakatos‘ characterization of progress in physical theory in light of the present situation. Next, this paper considers the implications of underdetermination for Weinberg’s ‘‘dream of a final theory.’’ Finally, the paper concludes by suggesting how one might (...) still think of realism and progress in fundamental physics despite the possibility of persistent underdetermination in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Husserl claimed that all theoretical scientific concepts originate in and are valid in reference to 'life-world' experience and that scientific traditions preserve the sense and validity of such concepts through unitary and cumulative change. Each of these claims will, in turn, be sympathetically laid out and assessed in comparison with more standard characterizations of scientific method and conceptual change as well as the history of physics, concerning particularly the challenge they may pose for scientific realism. The Husserlian phenomenological framework is (...) accepted here without defense, and hence the present project is limited to the task of asking what can and cannot be accommodated within that framework on its own terms. (shrink)