Realism scientific

Constructivism is linked to the philosophical-epistemological theory of (scientific) relativism or empiricism, which is in contrast to another theory, that of (scientific) realism or objectivism or positivism. Realists believe logical analysis applied to objective observations can be used to discover the truth about the world we live in. Relativists accept the existence of a real world, but question whether this world is knowable . They note that observations, and the choice of observations to be made, are influenced by the beliefs, theories, hypotheses, and background of the individual who makes them (6). Realism and empiricism must be considered as two extremes on a continuum. It is certain that in its early years (surely until, say, the beginning of the twentieth century), science was closer to relativism, but as time passed, we came closer to a realist state. Note that are there are those who argue that philosophical and educational constructivisms are intertwined (15, 16), and those who are against (IT) and critical (18) of the way these philosophical theories are linked to education theories. 

Leplin J (1997) A novel defence of scientific realism. Oxford University Press, Oxford... 

Pauling s resonance theory raised questions as to the ontological status of theoretical entities very similar to the problematique associated with discussions about scientific realism. Differences in the assessment of the methodological and ontological status of resonance were the object of a dispute between Pauling and Wheland, who worked towards the extension of resonance theory to organic... 

In defending his constructive empiricism against the no miracle argument for scientific realism, van Fraassen replies in a similar way (The Scientific Image, 39-40, esp. footnote 34). 

Boyd, Richard N. The Current Status of Scientific Realism. In Leplin, Scientific Realism, 41-82. 

Leplin, Jarrett (ed.). Scientific Realism. Berkeley/Los Angeles University of California Press, 1984. LePore, Ernest (ed.). Truth and Interpretation Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Oxford Blackwell, 1986. 

Levin, Michael. What Kind of Explanation is Truth In Leplin, Scientific Realism, 124-139. 

Three Kinds of Scientific Realism. The Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982) 195-200. 

The topic of noise has a bearing on arguments for scientific realism, necessitating a more nuanced interpretation of our commitments to reality than one often finds in the philosophy literature. For example, based on his manipulability criterion. Hacking proposes that our commitments to real-world processes are revealed in the use of certain entities as manipulating tools for the study of other, more hypothetical, processes. We know that electrons, for example, are real, because experimenters exploit the... 

Reduction" is related to a variety of other issues in the philosophy of science, for example the (dis)unity of science, models for the development of science, and for the change of theories, the analysis of theoretical terms, the purpose of science, and types of scientific realism. Moreover, in one guise or another, reduction is pervasive throughout the history of philosophy. Not only has it played a central role in the history of analytic philosophy and philosophy of science, but also the philosophies of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida, to name but a few, can be read as reductive programs. 

Fine, Arthur. 1984. "The Natural Ontological Attitude." In J. Leplin, ed. Scientific Realism (pp. 83-107). Berkeley University of California Press. 

I have said that had smell rather than vision been taken as a paradigm in the philosophy of perception. Weak Direct realism would have been taken as fairly obvious. So, too, I believe that if chemistry rather than physics had been taken as a paradigm in the philosophy of science, commonsense scientific realism would never have been seriously in dispute (though, of course, and rightly, it would have been disputed by some). 

This does not imply the agreement with Vihalemm s defense of Niiniluoto s (1999) critical scientific realism (for a criticism of Niiniluoto s position, see Lombardi and Perez Ransanz 2012, Chapter 2). 

The adherents of scientific realism instead seek intrinsic values in theories that are independent of epistemic aims, or any aim whatsoever. They claim that certain theories are in a not further explicable way tme . The search for such theories... 

If the truth conditions of a theory consist in all sentences that can possibly be deduced from the theory plus specific assumptions, as a standard view maintains, that would amount to all its possible explanations (postdictions) and predictions. Yet, scientific realism wants a theory to be more, making truth an obscure notion. 

Once we drop the obscure idea of scientific realism and look instead at what chemists do, philosophical realism turns out to be institutionalized in all its three traditional forms metaphysical, conceptual, and epistemological. 

As to the central statement of scientific realism Bas van Fraassen cites Wilfrid Sellars as follows To have good reason to accept a theory is to have good reasrai to believe that the entities it postulates are real, Existence criteria might be formulated scientifically like the Latvian-German chemist and historian of chemistry (and former student of Ostwald) Paul Walden (1863-1957) communicated in his monograph on radicals fi-om 1924. He differentiated three possible cases ... 

Hacking I (1984) Experimentation and scientific realism, hi Leplin J (ed) Scientific realism. 

This motivation, among others, has led to the widespread view that quantum mechanics supports an antireaUstic interpretation. Such a conclusion is disputed by many philosophers, including Ernan McMullin,The Case for Scientific Realism, in J. Leplin (ed.). Scientific Realism, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1984, pp. 8—40. 

The notion of reduction is independent of the notion of physicalism at least in this respect It is conceptually possible that (a version of) reductionism is true, and that physicalism is false. Possession of any richer concept of reduction, that combines metaphysically neutral reduction with physicalism, requires possession of the topic-neutral concept. So, we should not define our general notion of reduction in terms of physicalism. The notion covers a specific dependence relation that is neutral with respect to what actually forms the fundamental stuff. Physicalism is a doctrine about what the fundamental stuff is. Thus, these two issues have to be kept separate. The concept of reduction is not metaphysically neutral in the sense that reductionism goes together with metaphysical commitment realism suits the reductionist as conceived of here. So, what is the precise connection between scientific realism and reductionism ... 

Churchland, Paul M. 1979. Scientific realism and the plasticity cf mind. Cambridge Cambridge University Press. 

The question for realism is altogether different if taken in the sense of the belief in unobservable scientific entities. In fact many philosophers of science currently favor some form of scientific realism in the context of quantum mechanics (Cao, 2003). 

Yet realism about atoms and molecules was once the central issue for the philosophy of science. Far from being a local problem about one kind of entity, atoms and molecules were the chief candidates for real (or merely fictional) theoretical entities. Many of our present positions on scientific realism were worked out then, in connection with that debate. The very name scientific realism came into use at that time. ... 

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