Entity Realism

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The entities Realism is a variety of realism in the philosophy of science . This position is largely represented by Ian Hacking , among others . Entities used as instruments in the experiment are recognized as real . The argument in favor of this thesis runs roughly as follows: If one understands so much about an entity and its causal connection that one can use it as a means, an instrument - such as a hammer with which one drives a nail into the wall - then it is simple unreasonable to deny their reality .

If you can spray them, they are real

Hacking describes his entity realism in the 1983 book Representing and Intervening :

He tells about how he found out about an experiment in the neighboring physics laboratory: It was an experiment by physicists at Stanford University , in which the aim was to detect independent quarks with a charge of 1 / 3e. To do this, you bring a ball of niobium (a drop) to its superconductor temperature of 9 K and gradually change its charge. At the transition from negative to positive charge (or vice versa) you can now determine whether this occurs with a charge of 0 or about + 1 / 3e or −1 / 3e. If the latter happens, it is assumed that there is a free quark on the sphere. When asked how to change the charge of the niobium ball, Hacking quotes his friend as saying: "In this phase we spray it with positrons to increase the charge, or with electrons to decrease it." Description, Hacking decides (according to his own legend) to believe in the existence of electrons, and thus to a form of scientific realism.

Real entities

Understanding the causal properties of an entity enables it to be used as a tool. For hacking, this entity is more than a conceptual construct, it not only serves to “ save the phenomena ” (as Bas van Fraassen thinks), but as a (possible) tool. The way in which experimenters are (scientific) entity realists is unproblematic for hacking.

No theory realism

In contrast to this, a theory realism , i.e. the conviction that science is about true theories, cannot be understood by hacking. The experimenter himself does not have to believe in a particular theory. There are often many researchers with different convictions, even within a research group, who are conducting an experiment. Occasionally someone with a completely different point of view is even called in to explain a phenomenon. Even the average of all theories cannot be characterized as a conviction of the experimenters, since it is not even given that this theoretical average is itself a theory. A group of researchers usually shares a lot of common beliefs, but this is simply a sociological fact; this average does not necessarily constitute a theory. (Here hacking fits in seamlessly with Cartwright's argument .)