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The No-Miracles Argument for Realism: Inference to an Unacceptable Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Greg Frost-Arnold
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Abstract

I argue that a certain type of naturalist should not accept a prominent version of the no-miracles argument (NMA). First, scientists (usually) do not accept explanations whose explanans-statements neither generate novel predictions nor unify apparently disparate established claims. Second, scientific realism (as it appears in the NMA) is an explanans that makes no new predictions and fails to unify disparate established claims. Third, many proponents of the NMA explicitly adopt a naturalism that forbids philosophy of science from using any methods not employed by science itself. Therefore, such naturalistic philosophers of science should not accept the version of scientific realism that appears in the NMA.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 35 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I must thank Dennis Pozega, Laura Ruetsche, Feisal ben Hassel, Todd Jones, and Karen Frost-Arnold, as well as audiences at Seton Hall, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and the 2008 PSA, who all helped to improve this article. The anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science also provided extremely useful insights.

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