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Scientific Abstraction and the Realist Impulse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Martin Bunzl*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
*
Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Davison Hall, Douglass Campus, P.O. Box 270, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0270, USA.

Abstract

In a series of important papers, A. Fine has developed and defended the view that the proper reading of scientific practice is neither realist nor antirealist. Instead, he argues that realism and antirealism both add something extra to a core position which is neither. In this discussion I reexamine his claim in the light of some criticisms. Fine's position contains an important insight, but to draw that point out requires shifting the way in which Fine poses the argument. I do so by examining an argument by H. Stein.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1994

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