Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:34:01.870Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Convergent Realism and Approximate Truth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

David B. Resnik
David B. Resnik*
Affiliation:
University of Wyoming
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Convergent realists typically maintain the following theses:

  1. Tl: Some scientific theories, literally interpreted, are at least approximately true.

  2. T2: Some scientific theories, literally interpreted, genuinely refer.

  3. T3: The history of mature sciences is a progressive approximation to the truth.

  4. T4: The world (reality) described by scientific theories is independent of our thoughts or theoretical commitments.

Convergent realists usually offer the infamous “success of science” argument as the strongest defense of their view. Scientific realism, according to convergent realists, is the only view that does not portray the success of science as miraculous (i.e., unexplainable). Various versions of convergent realism have been defended by writers such as Richard Boyd (1973,1980,1984), W.H. Newton-Smith (1978), Hilary Putnam (1975,1978), JJ.C. Smart (1963,1985,1989), and Russell Hardin and Jay Rosenberg (1982). Critics of convergent realism include Larry Laudan (1981), Arthur Fine (1984), and Bas van Fraassen (1980).

Type
Part XI. Realism, Methodology and Underdetermination
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1992 , 1992 , pp. 421 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by 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

1

I am grateful to James Forrester, Allan Franklin, James Martin, and Michael Resnik for helpful comments and criticism.

References

Almeder, R. (1989), “Scientific Realism and Explanation”, American Philosophical Quarterly 26,173-186.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. (1973), “Realism, Underdetermination, and a Causal Theory of Evidence”, Nous 7 1-12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R. (1980), “Scientific Realism and Naturalistic Epistemology”, PSA 1980, volume2, Asquith, P.D. and Giere, R. (eds.). East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 613-662.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. (1984), “The Current Status of Scientific Realism”, in Scientific Realism, Leplin, J. (ed.), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cline, B. (1987), Men Who Made a New Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Field, H. (1972), “Tarski’s Theory of Truth”, Journal of Philosophy 69: 347-75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, H . (1977), “Logic, Meaning, and Conceptual Role”, Journal of Philosophy 74: 379-409.Google Scholar
Field, H. (1986), “The Deflationary Concept of Truth”, in Fact, Science, and Morality: Essays on A.J. Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic, Macdonald, G. and Wright, C. (eds.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fine, A. (1984), “The Natural Ontological Attitude”, in Scientific Realism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, N. (1972), Problems and Projects. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.Google Scholar
Grover, D. (1990), “Truth and Language-World Connections”, Journal of Philosophy 87: 671-87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, R. and Rosenberg, J. (1982), “In Defense of Convergent Realism.” Philosophy of Science 49: 604-615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilpinen, R. (1976), “Approximate Truth and Truthlikeness”, in Formal Methods in the Methodology of Empirical Sciences, Przlecki, M., Szaniawski, K., Wojicki, R. (eds.), Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Laudan, L. (1981), “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”, Philosophy of Science 48: 19-49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laymon, R. (1980), “Idealization, Explanation, and Confirmation”, PSA 1980, volume 1, Asquith, P. and Giere, R. , (eds.). East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 336-352.Google Scholar
Laymon, R. (1985), “Idealizations and the Testing of Theories by Experimentation”, in Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science, Achtinstein, P. and Hannaway, O. , (eds.). Cambridge: The MIT Press,.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (1974), “Popper’s Qualitative Theory of Verisimilitude”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 25: 178-88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niiniluoto, I. (1984), Is Science Progressive? Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niiniluoto, I. (1987), Truthlikeness. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton-Smith, W. (1978), “The Underdetermination of Theories by Data”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 71-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton-Smith, W. (1981), The Rationality of Science, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, C.S. (1955), “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”, Philosophical Writings of Peirce, Buchler, J.(ed.). New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1963), Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1968), The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1972), Objective Knowledge, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975), Mathematics, Matter, and Method, volume1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1972), Objective Knowledge. Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1981), Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quine, W.V. (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1970), Philosophy of Logic. Englewood Cliffs.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1949), The Theory of Probability. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rescher, N. (1973), The Coherence Theory of Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Resnik, D. (1988), “Survival of the Fittest: Law of Evolution or Law of Probability?” Biology and Philosophy 3: 349-62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resnik, M. (1990), “Immanent Truth”, Mind 99,407-24.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. (1979), The Darwinian Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Smart, J.J.C. (1963), Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Smart, J.J.C. (1985), “Laws of Nature and Cosmic Coincidences”, The Philosophical Quarterly 35: 272-80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, J.J.C. (1989), Our Place in the Universe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Suppe, F. (1989), The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Tarski, A. (1944), “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Theoretical Semantics”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4: 341-76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tichy, P. (1976), “Verisimilitude Redefined”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27: 25-42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Fraassen, B., (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar