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Methodological Realism and Scientific Rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jarrett Leplin
Jarrett Leplin*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
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Abstract

In response to recent recognition of the complexities of scientific change, discussion of the objectivity and the rationality of science has focused on criteria of theory choice. This paper addresses instead the rationality of scientific decisions at the level of ongoing research. It argues that whether or not a realist view of theories is compatible with the historical discontinuities of scientific change, certain realist assumptions are crucial to the rationality of research. The researcher must presume that questions about the existence and the properties of at least some of the “unobservable“ entities he theorizes about or experiments on are answerable on the basis of his work. The rationale of research cannot be understood solely in terms of the desiderata of instrumental utility or the empirical adequacy of theories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 31 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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