Scientific Realism: What Is at Stake?

This chapter begins by discussing what Bas van Fraassen called “the loss of reality objection”. Since models are constructed by our action of extracting properties from the phenomena, do we lose contact with reality in this process? While van Fraassen proposes a pragmatic dissolution of this problem, I advocate for a solution grounded on the truth of propositions, which ensure the connection of some models with external reality. Then, I argue in favour of a correspondence view – not theory – of truth according to which true propositions are satisfied by external truthmakers. I proceed by showing that the philosophical issue of epistemological scientific realism does not hinge on the reasons to believe in the reality of entities which are not directly observable – which is the business of science – but on the normative evaluation of these reasons. I define epistemological scientific realism thus: we have better reasons to believe in the existence of some detected entities (sets of properties) and in the truth of some propositions about them rather than adopting an agnostic suspension of judgement. Detected properties are properties that are observable in principle, but which can only be observed with the aid of instruments. Most scientific realists resort to abductive strategies to defend their position. According to the no miracle argument the success of science would be inexplicable, i.e. would be a miracle, if our best theories were not at least partially true about entities such as electrons, genes, etc. I argue that abductive explanationist strategies are unconvincing. As an alternative, I propose an inductivist strategy to defend a moderate version of scientific realism.