A “Third Way” towards Scientific Realism? The Pragmatic Proposal of Anjan Chakravartty
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Anjan Chakravartty maintains that – traditionally - the scientific realism-antirealism debate has been eminently epistemic, the issue being whether or not we should commit to the belief that our best scientific theories are true or approximately true and that their core terms successfully refer to aspects of the world. However, contemporary versions of scientific realism show a clear trend towards deepening into the metaphysical aspects of science, to the point that one of the most prominent features of these are substantial metaphysical theses. Faced with this situation, Chakravartty affirms that, beyond certain “basic” metaphysical commitments – based on the scientific practice -, the scientific realist can maintain a more pragmatic – even skeptical – position in the face of the more “deep” metaphysical commitments, more typical of the metaphysics of science than of the debate that concerns us. This paper aims to demonstrate that the arguments put forward by Chakravartty fail to justify this pragmatic position, and offers an example in which this position is untenable for the scientific realist.
- Scientific Realism
- Pragmatic Realism
- Metaphysic of Science
- Metaphysic Commitments
- Scientific Antirealism
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Accepted 2023-03-06
Published 2023-04-20
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