Abstract

Chapter I describes diachronic realism and shows why it is a version of what is called 'metaphysical realism'. Consequently, I argue that recent claims that 'metaphysical realism' is incoherent are unfounded. Chapter II argues that certain anti-realist positions involve an insufficient treatment of 'meaning' and 'reference' for theoretical terms. I review much of the current work on theories of reference and show that these incommensurability positions are bankrupt given either of the two most promising theories of reference. Chapter III argues that certain methodological factors are the main considerations in historical cases of theory choice, and can warrant rational belief in a theory if it has achieved a sufficient level of virtues. Chapter IV defends the intuition that a realist interpretation of scientific theories explains their success by expanding the concepts of 'truth' and 'approximate truth'. I introduce the notions of truthlikeness and being on the right track to distinguish theories that were at least partially theoretically correct, from theories that were only successful in that they correctly organized experimental data. I use these notions with my diachronic approach to analyze two important historical examples.