Abstract

CORDERO-LECCA, Alberto. On The Myth that Scientific Realisms is Dead. arete [online]. 2009, vol.21, n.2, pp.353-370. ISSN 1016-913X.

It is believed in some circles that the project of Scientific Realism is long dead, killed (so the story goes) by critiques advanced in the last century by Thomas Kuhn, Bas van Fraassen, Larry Laudan, and other major thinkers. Prominent among the moves deployed against realism are some global arguments about the empirical underdetermination of theories, as well as inductive arguments against the cumulative-refinement model of the advance of scientific knowledge. The power of such arguments as have been put forward seems grossly exaggerated at best, however. While the project of Scientific Realism is far from completion, no serious case exists for declaring it terminally ill (let alone dead), or so I argue in this paper.

Keywords : scientific realism; philosophy of science; history of science; synchronic and diachronic epistemology; empirical underdetermination.

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