Talk:Scientific realism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socrates
Philosophy Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Requests for Clarification?

I've done my best to make this article clear and accessible, but as a professional in this field it's often distinguish clear and accessible from technical and jargon-laden. Please, if there is anything in this article that you find makes it a less than helpful introduction, please ask here and I will do my best to edit the article to make it better. philosofool I reckon it is good, though since I'm also working in the field, I may not be the ideal reader. Then again, who is going to look at a section like this - it is hardly general interest? I've made an addition to the end of the bit on underdetermination, which I am writing on at present. What do you think?Thonemann 15:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm presently reading some books in order to get a comprehensive idea of the history of the philosophy of science and I must say that one of the most obscure concept I had to understand have been realism. I understand now that realists think that unobserved scientific concepts like atom, mass or force reflect real things... And that instrumentalist think that these concepts are just instruments to understand reality. Unfortunately this article was of no help in making me understand this. I suggest giving some examples of unobserved concept and making a clear distintion between realism and the opposite views. PierreWiki 14:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Realism and Modelling

To what extent is realism compatible with modelling?

  • I'm unsure what you mean by "modelling" here. "Modelling" sounds like something that is a matter of scientific methodology rather than the realism/anti-realism debate. By no means are questions of method and questions realism/anti-realism fully independent; however, most methodological issues can be accommodated by most interpretations of science. If you can say more about modelling, perhaps I can give a more complete response.philosofool
Modeling is an important part of the realist-antirealist debate, but I am not versed enough to write on it. Hopefully someone will add more information on it. - Atfyfe 18:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Caloric Theory

I moved a section from caloric theory to this page, as it is irrelevant there. Could someone who works in this field either merge it into the article properly, or remove it altogether? -- Wijnand 08:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paradigm Shift

Is pessimistic induction supported by Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts, and if so how do scientific realists counter this? 62.249.242.232 07:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific Realism and Antirealism

Allow me to suggest we have one page for the realist-antirealist debate in general. It seems odd to try and be discussing one and not the other. From this page we can then have links to specific positions within the debate (structural realism, instrumentalism, etc.). - Atfyfe 03:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corrections about logical positivist remark

Logical positivists do share much with current scientific realists, but in a strict sense, they are not scientific realists. First, logical positivists do not make ontological commitment (too metaphysical, unverifiable for them). Second, logical positivists are hostile to the idea that we can know about "unobservable". I am going to leave this objection for 2 weeks here. If no one rebuts it within two weeks, I am going to go ahead and modify the bit about logical positivist. Stampit (talk) 03:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)