Scientific Realism - History of Scientific Realism

History of Scientific Realism

Scientific realism is related to much older philosophical positions including rationalism and realism. However, it is a thesis about science developed in the twentieth century. Portraying scientific realism in terms of its ancient, medieval, and early modern cousins is at best misleading.

Scientific realism is developed largely as a reaction to logical positivism. Logical positivism was the first philosophy of science in the twentieth century and the forerunner of scientific realism, holding that a sharp distinction can be drawn between observational terms and theoretical terms, the latter capable of semantic analysis in observational and logical terms.

Logical positivism encountered difficulties with:

  • The verification theory of meaning (for which see Hempel (1950)).
  • Troubles with the analytic-synthetic distinction (for which see Quine (1950)).
  • The theory ladenness of observation (for which see Kuhn (1970) and Quine (1960)).
  • Difficulties moving from the observationality of terms to observationality of sentences (for which see Putnam (1962)).
  • The vagueness of the observational-theoretical distinction (for which see Maxwell (1962)).

These difficulties for logical positivism suggest, but do not entail, scientific realism, and lead to the development of realism as a philosophy of science.

Realism became the dominant philosophy of science after positivism. Bas van Fraassen developed constructive empiricism as an alternative to realism. Responses to van Fraassen have sharpened realist positions and lead to some revisions of scientific realism.

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