SCIENTIFIC REALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVE EMPIRICISM
a debate about scientific success
Keywords:
scientific realism, constructive empiricism, miracle argument, Hilary Putnam, van FraassenAbstract
The present article's main objective is to argue in favor of scientific realism, by justifying the demand for an explanation for the success of science, as well as indicating the insufficiency of non-realistic explanation scheme offered by constructive empiricism. Scientific realism is a philosophical conception of science that assumes an optimistic epistemic attitude towards the results of scientific investigation that encompass both observable and unobservable aspects of the world. Science is successful in explaining and predicting phenomena, including novel ones, because its best theories (mature, not ad hoc, empirically and instrumentally successful, providing novel predictions, fruitful, etc.) are (partial or approximately) true and the unobservable entities present in these theories really exist. Constructive empiricism, in turn, presents an evolutionary-Darwinian explanation for the success of science. A scientific theory does not need to be true to be successful. It only needs to save the phenomena, that is, correctly describe what is observable. Current theories have survived throughout history because, among competing theories, they were the ones that were most able to adapt, that is, they were able to grasp the regularities in the phenomena that should explain. After a comparative analysis of the perspectives under debate, we consider that a sophisticated scientific realism, which avoids certain problems, such as the commitment to theory of truth as correspondence, and which has an improved version of the miracle argument, represents the strongest candidate for a satisfactory explanation of scientific success.
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