School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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End date: 2009 × Start date: 2000 × Type: PhD thesis × Subject: Science ×

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    The Epistemological and axiological tenets of scientific realism
    Lyons, Timothy David ( 2001)
    In Part I, I criticise theory-based epistemic realism. In its most basic form, this is the view that we can be justified in believing that our successful theories are true. The basic explanationist argument put forward to justify that belief it would be a miracle were our theories successful but not true. In recent literature, realists have advanced a number of sophistications on this basic view: truth is replaced by approximate truth; success is defined to be novel success; a commitment to theories is refined to a commitment to certain theoretical constituents, etc. Carefully tracing such realist advances, I invoke and further a series of non-realist arguments. For instance, I clarify an important historical argument, spelling out a number of significant implications, and I show that these implications bear on each sophistication of realism. To justify an epistemic commitment to one theory among a large set of equally successful rival theories, realists invoke supraempirical virtues (e.g., simplicity). I argue that recent appeals to such virtues fail either to eliminate the competitors or to connect the virtues to truth (thus belief). I contend that, as a result, even what is usually written off as a "trivial" form of underdetermination seriously threatens realism. Against the claim that realism provides the only or best explanation for the success of scientific theories, I sort through and develop a number of non-realist alternative explanations. . Adjudicating between competing explanations, I appeal to a set of essentially noncontentious criteria, e.g., the ability to explain specific historical successes, the degree to which an explanation implies what it is purported to explain, etc. Employing such criteria, I argue that, among the explanations for success considered, one of the non-realist explanations I advance is preferable. After tracing the various realist sophistications, I conclude that despite the contemporary confidence in theory-based realism, its case has yet to be made. In light of this, and still wanting to retain the view that science pursues the truth, we have reason to develop an axiological realism that is independent of epistemic realism. This is the concern of Part II. I begin by postulating that science seeks a certain type of truth. I explicate this notion of truth and show that the achievement of such an end requires the achievement of a set of key theoretical virtues. Drawing on this point, I illustrate that, even if truth is an epistemically inaccessible goal, its pursuit is not rendered irrational. And I argue that -- in contrast with non-realism and other axiological realisms relying on epistemic realism -- my axiological realism both explains and justifies science's pursuit of these key virtues. I conclude that science pursues the truth and is justified in doing so, irrespective of whether we can justifiably believe we have achieved truth. In the final chapter, I discuss the relationship between epistemic and axiological realism, and I offer a proposal of how my axiological realism can be invoked to ground a foundational epistemic realism.