Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T23:42:06.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Realism About What?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Roger Jones
Roger Jones*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Kentucky
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Preanalytically, we are all scientific realists. But both philosophers and scientists become uncomfortable when forced into analysis. In the case of scientists, this discomfort often arises from practical difficulties in setting out a carefully described set of objects which adequately account for the phenomena with which they are concerned. This paper offers a set of representative examples of these difficulties for contemporary physicists. These examples challenge the traditional realist vision of mature scientific activity as struggling toward an ontologically well-defined world picture. They challenge antirealist alternatives as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 185 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Research for this paper was partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant SES–86–18758. I would like to thank Paul Teller, Arthur Fine, Ernan McMullin, and the referees for comments on earlier versions. A version was read at the Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting in 1988.

References

Boyd, R. N. (1979), “Metaphor and Theory Change”, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 356–408..Google Scholar
Boyd, R. N. (1984), “The Current Status of Scientific Realism”, in J. Leplin, pp. 41–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Eath, P. D. (1979), “Pertubation Methods for Interactions between Strongly Self-Gravitating Systems”, in J. Ehlers (ed.), Isolated Gravitating Systems in General Relativity. Proceedings of the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi”, Course 67. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 249–288.Google Scholar
Devitt, M. (1981), Designation. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devitt, M. (1984), Realism and Truth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, W. G. (1979), “Extended Bodies in General Relativity: Their Description and Motion”, in J. Ehlers (ed.), Isolated Gravitating Systems in General Relativity. Proceedings of the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi”, Course 67. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 156–219.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (1970), “Space-Time, or How to Solve Philosophical Problems and Dissolve Philosophical Muddles without Really Trying”, The Journal of Philosophy 67: 259–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehlers, J. (1980), “Isolated Systems in General Relativity”, in J. Ehlers, J. Perry, and M. Walker (eds.), Ninth Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, pp. 279–294.Google Scholar
Everett, H. (1973), “‘Relative State’ Formulation of Quantum Mechanics”, in B. DeWitt and N. Graham (eds.), The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 141–149..Google Scholar
Feynman, R. (1965), The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fine, A. (1986), The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Flaherty, F. J., (ed.) (1984), Asymptotic Behavior of Mass and Spacetime Geometry. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. (1983), Foundations of Space-Time Theories: Relativistic Physics and Philosophy of Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Geroch, R. (1977), “Asymptotic Structure of Space-Time”, in F. P. Esposito and L. Witten (eds.), Asymptotic Structure of Space-Time. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 1–105.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980), Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jammer, M. (1974), The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics; The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics in Historical Perspective. New York: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Jones, R. (n.d.), “What Is a Shlemiel? or How to Think About Abstract Terms in Science”, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laymon, R. (1984), “The Path from Data to Theory”, in J. Leplin, pp. 108–123.10.1525/9780520337442-006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leplin, J., (ed.) (1984), Scientific Realism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mach, E. (1959), The Analysis of Sensations, and the Relation of the Physical to the Physical. Translated from the 1st German ed. by Williams, C. M. Revised and supplemented from the 5th German ed. by Waterlow, S. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
McMullin, E. (1978), Newton on Matter and Activity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Misner, C.; Thorne, K.; and Wheeler, J. (1973), Gravitation. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N. J. (1984), Faraday to Einstein: Constructing Meaning in Scientific Theories. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagels, H. (1982), The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. (1984), “Mass and Angular Momentum at the Quasi-Local Level in General Relativity”, in F. J. Flaherty (ed.), Asymptotic Behavior of Mass and Spacetime Geometry. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 23–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, I. (1980), “Experimental Challenges Posed by the General Theory of Relativity”, in H. Woolf (ed.), Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein. Reading: Addison-Wesley, pp. 115–136.Google Scholar
Symon, K. R. (1960), Mechanics. 2d ed. Reading: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1985), “Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science”, in P. Churchland and C. Hooker (eds.), Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 245–308.Google Scholar
Wald, R. (1984), General Relativity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, M. (1985), “What Can Theory Tell Us About Observation?”, in P. Churchland and C. Hooker (eds.), Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism. Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 222–242.Google Scholar
Yourgrau, W. and Mandelstam, S. (1968), Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory. 3d ed. Philadelphia: Saunders.Google Scholar