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from V - Naturalism, pragmatism, realism and methodology
Principles of scientific method play a considerable role in arguments for scientific realism and for rival positions. Scientific realists maintain not only that the aim of science is truth, but that pursuit of science does in fact give rise to truth about observable and unobservable dimensions of reality. Such a realist view has evident implications for the methodology of science. For if the pursuit of science gives rise to truth, it is presumably the methods employed by scientists that are responsible for this achievement. But in this case the use of scientific methods must lead to truth, that is, they are truth-conducive. Questions of an epistemological nature therefore arise about whether the methods of science are indeed genuinely truth-conducive methods for enquiry.
In this chapter, we first present the position of scientific realism before exploring methodological aspects of the position. In §13.1, we outline a number of different aspects of realism: axiological, metaphysical, semantic and epistemic. In §13.2, we consider the best-known argument for scientific realism. This is the so-called success argument that realism is the best explanation of the success of science. We also briefly discuss objections that have been raised against the success argument. In §13.3, we consider a problem that arises with respect to realization of the realist aim of truth. We then examine the metamethodological application of the success argument as an argument for the truth-conducive character of the methods of science.
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