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Showing 1 to 20 of 24 for “"scientific realism"”.
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Scientific realism vs. scientific antirealism
According to Boyd/Putnam, scientific realism is the view that successful theories are typically approximately true and that their key terms typically refer. The no-miracle argument for the view holds that approximate truth and reference provide the best explanation of the success of science. I try …
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On Inter-Theoretic Relations and Scientific Realism
… debates in the philosophy of science: namely, scientific realism, emergence, and theoretical equivalence. The thesis brings logico-semantic tools of the analytic tradition—about syntactic and semantic construals of theories, and about extensions and intensions—to bear on these debates. The …
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Scientific Realism and the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements
The periodic table poses a difficulty for both scientific realists and anti-realists. The anti-realist has difficulty accounting for the success of the table during a period in chemistry when many theories and concepts changed; the spatial relations of current tables in use do not show fundamental …
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A Defense for Scientific Realism: Skepticisms, Unobservables & Interference to the Best Explanation
The epistemological status of scientific knowledge claims has been undermined by skepticism, in particular by universal skepticism. This thesis asserts that Bas C. van Fraassens empirical stance is akin to universal skepticism. This work also maintains that van Fraassens empirical stance does not …
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Does autism merit belief? : Developing an account of scientific realism for psychiatry
… causes. I outline psychiatric classifications as scientific laws. They are high level idealised models which guide construction of lower level, more specific, models. This opens alternative routes to belief for psychiatric classification lacking robust causes. Chapter five shows that psychiatric …
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"An essay concerning subjectivity and scientific realism: Some fancies on Sellarsian themes and onto-politics"
… of normativity alongside a quasi-eliminativist scientific realism. I set the stage for my critique of Sellars by contrasting two different accounts of subjectivity, one Cartesian, the other pragmatic. I argue in favor of the pragmatic because it completely grounds the subject in the world (a …
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The Fertility of Theories
… and compatibility with other current theories, scientific theories are commonly judged on three criteria ' simplicity, elegance, and fertility. Fertility has received comparatively little attention in the philosophical literature. A definition of a certain sort of fertility, called P-fertility, …
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The Structure of Meta-Scientific Claims: Toward a Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies
… provides a basis on which to adjudicate meta-scientific claims. The appeal to context blurs internal and external references, offers an ontological starting point for STS accounts of science, serves as the basis for methodological debate, and refers to values which anchor a notion of …
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Evolutionary Models of Language: A Methodological and Philosophical Study
… models. In this chapter, I argue that only scientific realism can justify the use of computational models that assess the reliability of inference methods. This is surprising, given that modelers’ urge to idealize and simplify is often claimed to be at odds with scientific realism. In …
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A design-led investigation at the intersection of algal biotechnology and design
… With its strong emphasis on functionality and scientific realism, her doctoral work is a novel example of the fusion of biodesign and experimental design.
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The Tension Between Falsificationism and Realism: a Critical Examination of a Problem in the Philosophy of Karl Popper
… of science includes both falsificationism and realism. I explore the relationship between these two positions in his philosophy and find a strong tension between them. Drawing upon this tension in Popper's philosophy, I explore the general relationship between falsificationism and realism in an …
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Framework theories in science
… thesis consists of three papers on the nature of scientific theories and inference. In many cases, scientific theories can be regarded as organized into hierarchies, with higher levels sometimes called 'paradigms', and lower levels encoding more specific or concrete hypotheses. The first chapter …
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Aquinas and the realist dispute in science an Aristotelio-Thomistic contribution to current discussions in language, logic and science
… ourselves with the strengths and weaknesses of scientific realism and scientific anti-realism, and to show that a synthesis of realist and anti-realist tendencies is desirable. Chapters Two and Three deal with a challenge stemming from semantic anti-realists concerning the proper understanding …
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Walter Lippmann's Search for a Sustainable Liberalism
… ideals of inevitable historical development and scientific progress to the stability of human rights and freedom. America’s path to defining its brand of liberalism finds expression in the philosophical works of Lippmann, who was at the center of this struggle. Lippmann was a defender of the …
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Nietzsche's reconception of science: overcoming nihilism
… Nietzsche has a positive conception of science, scientific constructivism, which he develops in response to nihilistic conceptions of science, particularly scientific realism. Scientific constructivism helps overcome nihilism because it correctly captures the nature of scientific investigation. …
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The evolution of biological theories: explaining the success of Mendelian genetics, Darwin’s Theory of natural selection and their synthesis
… why Mendelian genetics and the synthesis were scientifically successful. One possible explanation for this is given by constructivism, the view that developments in science are decided not by rational reasons, but by contingent factors. A sophisticated version of this view is defended by …
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The effect of Basel II on SME financing in Germany. An exploratory study of the impact of the new Basel Accord on SMES and financiers in Germany
… which trigger certain mechanisms, from a 'scientific realism' (Smith, 1998) perspective, because the literature indicates that 'positivist generalising' has limited validity. Building on Creswell (2003), an 'exploratory sequential' design was created to test three initial hypotheses (as …
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Naming without necessity
… thin essences are perfectly adequate to underpin scientific realism, and moreover that they are sufficient to support the version of descriptivism developed here. In effect, what I offer here is an error theory of the Kripkean tradition: Kripke is right to think that there are interesting things …
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The Social and the Real: The Idea of Objectivity in Peirce, Brandom, and Mcdowell
… offered by Charles Peirces semiotics and his scientific realism. According to Peirce, norms are objective neither because their authority is located in the world that stands up against our social conventions, nor because we are creatures capable of reflection, but because our inquiry is always …
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A Realist Study of Self-management Apps to help People living with Chronic Low Back Pain
… research was conducted within the paradigm of scientific realism<br/>which uses a generative understanding of causation to explain<br/>programme outcomes. These causal explanations are expressed as<br/>programme theories. The research was designed in two parts, a realist<br/>synthesis followed …
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