Abstract

Philosophy has an honorable tradition as interpreter and advocate of science. That role is in decline. While other science studies disciplines deconstruct “reality”, “truth”, “rationality”, “knowledge”, and “progress” into the political tools of an interested elite, philosophy finds itself too divided over the scope of these concepts to defend them. The debate over realism in the philosophy of science is at an impasse. Agreeing on the relevant evidence and cognizant of the opposing arguments, the disputants cannot see what it would take to break the impasse. The philosophies of individual sciences progress, but no general analysis of scientific knowledge is sufficiently secure to advance against science's detractors.