Why the ultimate argument for scientific realism ultimately fails

Why the Ultimate Argument for Scientific Realism Ultimately

In this paper, I argue that the ultimate argument for Scientific Realism, also known as the No-Miracles Argument (NMA), ultimately fails as an abductive defence of Epistemic Scientific Realism (ESR), where (ESR) is the thesis that successful theories of mature sciences are approximately true. The NMA is supposed to be an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) that purports to explain the succe...

Thinking About the Ultimate Argument for Realism

Alan Musgrave has been one of the most passionate defenders of scientific realism. Most of his papers in this area are, by now, classics. The title of my paper alludes to Musgrave’s piece “The Ultimate Argument for Realism”, though the expression is Bas van Fraassen’s (1980, 39), and the argument is Hilary Putnam’s (1975, 73): realism “is the only philosophy of science that does not make the su...

Why Critical Realism Fails to Justify Critical Social Research 1

Many social scientists have argued that research should be designed to perform a ‘critical’ function, in the sense of challenging the socio-political status quo. However, very often, the relationship between the political value judgements underpinning this commitment and the values intrinsic to inquiry, as a distinct form of activity has been left obscure. Furthermore, the validity of those jud...

Realism for scientific ontologies

Science aims to develop an accurate understanding of reality through a variety of rigorously empirical and formal methods. Ontologies are used to formalize the meaning of terms within a domain of discourse. The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is an ontology of particular importance in the biomedical domains, where it provides the top-level for numerous ontologies, including those admitted as part o...

When argument fails.