A general insight of 20th-century philosophy of science is that the acceptance of a scientific theory is grounded, not merely on a theory’s relation to data, but on its status as having no, or being superior to its, competitors. I explore the ways in which scientific realists might be thought to utilise this insight, have in fact utilised it, and can legitimately utilise it. In more detail, I p...

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Future research on protein folding must confront two serious dilemmas. (1) It may never be possible to observe at high resolution the very important structures that form in the first few milliseconds of the refolding reaction. (2) The energy functions used to predict structure from sequence will always be approximations of the true energy function. One strategy to resolve both dilemmas is to vi...

Realists about fictional characters posit a certain theoretical role and candidate to fill this role. I will delineate the realists take like Emma Woodhouse fill, argue that it is better filled by what call ‘characterisations’. In explaining mean ‘characterisations’, show existence of these entities comparatively uncontroversial. should acknowledge their existence, but doing so, argue, obviates...

Some scholars known as offensive realists claim that in the uncertainty of world politics, trust and cooperation between states is extremely unlikely. Others, such as defensive realists, claim that rational states are capable of finding ways to counteract the complications created by misperceptions and distrust, and to reduce uncertainty to levels where it no longer inhibits cooperation. In thi...