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Is Scientific Realism a Contingent Thesis?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2022
Extract
In his book, The Structure of Science, E. Nagel pontifically handed down the judgment that the dispute between scientific instrumentalism and scientific realism resolved into an issue over ‘preferred modes’ of speech. Nagel argued that any realistic interpretation of formulation of a scientific theory could, by an appropriate switch from the material to the formal mode of speech, be converted into an instrumentalistic interpretation. Thus, the basic issue dividing the instrumentalists and realists, i.e., the ontological status of theoretical entities, whether and in what sense they existed and were real, was declared to be a pseudo-issue. In the interim, despite the high interest in the formalization of theories, a movement that could only serve the instrumentalist or neutralist camp, scientific realism, although pronounced dead, has refused to lie down.
- Type
- Part X Truth and Realism in Science
- Information
- PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1972 , 1972 , pp. 367 - 373
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company