Scientific realism

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The scientific realism is a realistic position in epistemology and philosophy of science states that that a recognizable reality exists that is independent of human thought, and that accepting the confirmation of a scientific theory established that this reality looks like this theory that says. In particular, this concerns the claim that the entities about which a confirmed theory speaks exist objectively.

overview

Scientific realism seeks to provide a justification as a philosophy that the opinion is justified that scientific theories in their application provide a practically useful description and explanation of processes and structures as they can be found in reality. If a scientific theory is well confirmed, it justifies the assumption that reality is as the theory predicts it. Contrary assumptions would make scientific confirmation and scientific progress a pure miracle, according to the so-called (No-) Miracle-Argument (no-miracle argument) for scientific realism.

A similar position is critical realism , which only assumes that a theory makes statements about what reality is like, but not that the correctness of these statements can or must be justified by probation. Another variant of scientific realism is structural realism, the main thesis of which is that the theoretical concepts of the best and most mature theories do not refer to objective, but structural entities.

Criticism through anti-realistic arguments

The scientific realist assumes that the empirical adequacy of a theory is a result of its truth and the reference of its central theoretical terms. In the past, there were theories that were acknowledged to be empirically adequate , but were definitely wrong based on today's knowledge. Two prominent examples are the so-called phlogiston theory of chemistry and the ether postulated by Fresnel to explain optical phenomena. In his article Confutation of Convergent Realism , Larry Laudan criticizes scientific realism as the optimistic assumption of a progressively more precise and extensive knowledge of the facts and scientific progress as the systematic convergence of increasingly narrower empirical explanations through his so-called pessimistic induction , the conclusion that past scientific theories are falsehood the falseness of today's theories. According to him, self-proclaimed realists are by no means able to explain why scientific theories that are by no means based on “true” assumptions or terminology can be successful or have been so for a long time. On the contrary, there are a multitude of scientific theories, the original assumptions of which have since proven to be false. Laudan refers, among other things, to the original version of Dalton's atomic theory or Bohr's theses on the electron, which were flawed in important aspects and in some cases, like Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, were completely unsuccessful over long periods of time. Realism is by no means able to interpret the success of theses whose prerequisites or basic terminology are by no means confirmed. In this sense, contrary to its own epistemological claim, “realism” is in no way able to explain actual mechanisms in the scientific community. On the contrary, according to Gerhard Lenski and Robert Merton's theses , among others, religious beliefs and denominational behavior patterns have had a strong influence on large areas of the state and society since the 18th century to the present day. Protestantism and Pietism in particular have created essential foundations for the emergence and development of scientific perspectives.

Bas van Fraassen , one of the main exponents of scientific anti-realism, criticizes the no-miracle argument in The scientific image . According to this argument, any anti-realistic view of the nature of scientific knowledge would lead to scientific knowledge being a mere "miracle" - but now there is scientific progress and miraculous assumptions cannot be rationally justified (so the assumptions of the argument), so scientific realism must be true.

According to van Fraassen, empirical adequacy is the only criterion for an acceptable theory. This does not have to be true, since it can make statements in the area of ​​the (apparently) postulated theoretical entities that, if interpreted realistically, would be completely wrong. Van Fraassen also advocates a pluralism of acceptable theories.

Hilary Putnam has criticized various narrowing of metaphysical realism, including the view that there is a “ready made world” or a privileged conceptual scheme or empirical evidence for a convergence of different scientific theories. Nevertheless, Putnam has always remained a scientific realist.

literature

  • Stathis Psillos: Scientific Realism: How Science tracks Truth, New York and London: Routledge 1999
  • Bas van Fraassen: The scientific Image , Oxford 1980 (Chapter 1 criticizes many popular arguments for scientific realism)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d A Confutation of Convergent Realism, Larry Laudan, Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1981), pp. 19-49, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association, JSTOR 187066 .
  2. ^ Gerhard Lenski: The Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics, and Family Life . Doubleday US, 1961.
  3. ^ I. Bernard Cohen (ed.), Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science: the Merton Thesis , Rutgers University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8135-1530-0 .
  4. ^ Piotr Sztomka, Robert K. Merton , in George Ritzer (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Major Contemporary Social Theorists, Blackwell Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-4051-0595-X , Google Print, p. 13.