Javascript must be enabled to continue!

4. Realism and anti‐realism

‘Realism and anti-realism’ is concerned with the debate between scientific realism and its converse, anti-realism or instrumentalism. Realists hold that the aim of science is to provide a true description of the world. Anti-realists hold that it is to provide a true description of the ‘observable’ part of the world. The ‘no miracles’ argument, one of the strongest arguments for scientific realism, is shown to be a plausibility argument — an inference to the best explanation. Central to the debate between realism and anti-realism is the observable/unobservable distinction and the views of realist Grover Maxwell and anti-realist Bas van Fraassen are described. The underdetermination argument is also explained.

Oxford University Press

Samir Okasha

Very Short Introductions

2013

Title: 4. Realism and anti‐realism

Description:

‘Realism and anti-realism’ is concerned with the debate between scientific realism and its converse, anti-realism or instrumentalism.

Realists hold that the aim of science is to provide a true description of the world.

Anti-realists hold that it is to provide a true description of the ‘observable’ part of the world.

The ‘no miracles’ argument, one of the strongest arguments for scientific realism, is shown to be a plausibility argument — an inference to the best explanation.

Central to the debate between realism and anti-realism is the observable/unobservable distinction and the views of realist Grover Maxwell and anti-realist Bas van Fraassen are described.

The underdetermination argument is also explained.

Back

Structural realism, or neorealism, is a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations. First outlined by Kenneth Waltz i...

Realism and Anti-realism

The chapter argues that the search for a single construal of the realism/anti-realism distinction is misguided. There are more or less apt versions of the distinction, each framed ...

Ira Dworkin on Schatz and Shorbagy

This essay puts Egypt, the “Arab Spring,” and Islamic activism into a broader perspective, arguing that a binary approach pitting “anti-Americanism” against “pro-Americanism” is pr...

Anti-racist Pedagogy in the Early Childhood Classroom

In Anti-racist Pedagogy in the Early Childhood Classroom, author Miriam Tager provides detailed descriptions of Anti-Racist lessons and activities in early childhood classrooms. Wi...

Virtue Runs Amok

This chapter argues that a return to realism of a prudent and sceptical kind can help temper the pathologies that led to the Iraq War, on several fronts. It can counsel governments...

Seyed Mohammad Marandi on Schatz and Shorbagy

This essay draws on Chomsky, and notes that for many people the term “anti-Americanism” works like a tool preventing criticism of the U.S. It argues that the term frames the narrat...

Global Anti-Vice Activism, 1890–1950

Vice was one of the primary shared interests of the global community at the turn of the twentieth century. Anti-vice activists worked to combat noxious substances such as alcohol, ...

The Three Horseman of the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism, East European Empire, Aryan Folk Community

This article traces the three main issues which dominated Hitler's regime in Germany during the Holocaust. Two interpretive traditions have, since Hitler's day, commanded scholarly...

Email:
Password:

Email:

4. Realism and anti‐realism

Related Results