Abstract American philosophical realism developed in two forms: “new” and “critical” realism. While the new realists sought to ‘emancipate’ ontology from epistemology defended a direct theory of perception, critical promoted representationalist account perception thus argued for an epistemological dualism. Bertrand Russell’s early writings figured prominently both these realist camps. However, ...

Realism Philosophic realism in general is defined by Phillips (1987, p. 205) as " the view that entities exist independently of being perceived, or independently of our theories about them. " Schwandt adds that " scientific realism is the view that theories refer to real features of the world. 'Reality' here refers to whatever it is in the universe (i.e., forces, structures, and so on) that cau...

What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism. We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture; and defend it from certain objections that have been raised against it. However, there are good reasons to be dissatisfied with wave-function realism, as we go o...

Economists customarily talk about the ‘realism’ of economic models and of their assumptions and make descriptive and prescriptive judgements about them: this model has more realism in it than that, the realism of assumptions does not matter, and so on. This is not the way philosophers mostly use the term ‘realism’ thus there is a major terminological discontinuity between the two disciplines. T...

String theory currently is the only viable candidate for a unified description of all known natural forces. This article tries to demonstrate that the fundamental structural and methodological differences that set string theory apart from other physical theories have important philosophical consequences. Focussing on implications for the realism debate in philosophy of science, it is argued tha...

In this position paper I consider four topics on which machine learning and philosophy of science can illuminate each other: scienti c method, simplicity, theoretical terms and scienti c realism. I conclude by stressing the di erences between the two disciplines.

By and large, modern societies take it for granted that nature, or ‘the environment’, is apart from society. However, this separation promotes the view that the environment should be managed for profit or pleasure, or that it exists in exotic or wild places experienced only as a fantasy world. As a result, environmental problems are seen to arise ‘out there’ instead of inside our heads, which c...

Although during recent years in the field of special education there has been much debate regarding inclusion and people’s beliefs around disability, it is suggested that what has been lacking in many of the discussions is any coherent guiding philosophy that helps direct research in this area. The paper proposes that critical realism, developed by philosopher Roy Bhaskar, may provide such a fr...

Many recent articles from within the information systems (IS) arena present an old-fashioned view of realism. For example, Iivari, Hirschheim, and Klein (1998) saw classical realism as seeing “data as describing objective facts, information systems as consisting of technological structures (‘hardware’), human beings as subject to causal laws (determinism), and organizations as relatively stable...

Nursing is a distinct scientific professional discipline, with a specific body of knowledge obtained through research and clinical practice. Today, a PhD nursing scholar is entrusted with shaping and preserving the quality and vitality of professional nursing. Evidences that are assembled from diverse paradigms of inquiry, nursing theories and philosophies are more fitted to address the basic q...