Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:13:04.738Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scientific Abstraction and the Realist Impulse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Martin Bunzl
Martin Bunzl*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Davison Hall, Douglass Campus, P.O. Box 270, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0270, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a series of important papers, A. Fine has developed and defended the view that the proper reading of scientific practice is neither realist nor antirealist. Instead, he argues that realism and antirealism both add something extra to a core position which is neither. In this discussion I reexamine his claim in the light of some criticisms. Fine's position contains an important insight, but to draw that point out requires shifting the way in which Fine poses the argument. I do so by examining an argument by H. Stein.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 449 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bigelow, J. and Pargetter, R. (1990), “From Extroverted Realism to Correspondence: A Modest Proposal”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50: 435–460.10.2307/2108158CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, A. (1984a), “And Not Anti-Realism Either”, Nous 18: 51–65.10.2307/2215021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, A. (1984b), “The Natural Ontological Attitude”, in Leplin, J. (ed.), Scientific Realism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 83–107.10.1525/9780520337442-005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, A. (1986a), The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fine, A. (1986b), “Unnatural Attitudes: Realist and Instrumentalist Attachments to Science”, Mind 95: 149–177.10.1093/mind/XCV.378.149CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, R. (1989), “In Search of Einstein's Legacy: A Critical Notice of Arthur Fine, The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory”, The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory 98: 215–238.Google Scholar
Musgrave, A. (1989), “Noa's Ark—Fine for Realism”, The Philosophical Quarterly 39: 383–398.10.2307/2219825CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1984), The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stein, H. (1989), “Yes, but … Some Skeptical Remarks on Realism and Anti-Realism”, Dialectica 43: 47–65.10.1111/j.1746-8361.1989.tb00930.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar