Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?

Dialectica 43 (1-2):99-124 (1989)
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Abstract

SummaryenThe main argument for scientific realism is that our present theories in science are so successful empirically that they can't have got that way by chance - instead they must somehow have latched onto the blueprint of the universe. The main argument against scientific realism is that there have been enormously successful theories which were once accepted but are now regarded as false. The central question addressed in this paper is whether there is some reasonable way to have the best of both worlds: to give the argument from scientific revolutions its full weight and yet still adopt some sort of realist attitude towards presently accepted theories in physics and elsewhere. I argue that there is such a way - through structural realism, a position adopted by Poincare, and here elaborated and defended.

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Citations of this work

What is structural realism?James Ladyman - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 29 (3):409-424.
Structuralism as a Response to Skepticism.David J. Chalmers - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy 115 (12):625-660.
Duality and ontology.Baptiste Le Bihan & James Read - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (12):e12555.
The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.Carl F. Craver - 2014 - In Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver R. Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Case of Biology and History. Springer Verlag. pp. 27-52.

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References found in this work

Scientific Realism.Jarrett Leplin (ed.) - 1984 - University of California Press.
Scientific Realism.Jarrett Leplin (ed.) - 1984 - University of California.
In defense of convergent realism.Clyde L. Hardin & Alexander Rosenberg - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (4):604-615.
Theories, perception and structural realism.Grover Maxwell - 1970 - In Robert Colodny (ed.), The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 3-34.

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