Abstract
In his article “Choosing the Realist Framework” (2011), Stathis Psillos develops an empirical realism; a scientific realism that should be acceptable even to empiricists with metaphysical anxieties. This sounds promising in a time of increased interest in deflationary (neo-Carnapian) approaches to metaphysics. Psillos proposes to regard scientific realism as an ontic framework, i.e. as an answer to the question what it is to be real and not what is real. Adopting the realist framework, the realist ontology follows. While the adoption of an ontic framework is an unforced choice, Psillos argues that one must adopt the realist framework, if one aims for a causally and nomologically coherent image of the world. I argue, on the one hand, that if empirical realism introduces a term ‘real’ that only applies to unobservables, then observables and unobservables are equally real only because the same signifier, ‘real’, is used for two different concepts. On the other hand, insisting that nothing is given prior to the realist framework is in close proximity to idealism. An empirical realist must insist that only some unqualified empirical input is given. However, without a pre-framework ontology, the aim of a causally and nomologically coherent image of the world cannot be conducive to the correct ontology. I propose that this leaves the aim obsolete and thereby empirical realism undefended. I conclude that while the realist framework does reproduce an ontology that resembles the realist ontology, it is questionable whether scientific realists or metaphysical deflationists will find the position attractive.
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Notes
Evidently, this is very different from the view advanced by Psillos in Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth (1999). The changed view is, according to Psillos, the result of the recognition that “the no-miracles argument works within the realist framework; it’s not an argument for it” (Psillos 2011, 313). For the no-miracles argument to be sound, the realist framework must be adopted as the operational ontic framework.
That is, the same string of symbols.
This is itself a metaphysically suspicious formulation. However, having established that ontic frameworks are factual frameworks, the formulation ‘the way the world is’ serves to signify whatever non-linguistic input that is required to evaluate the claim ‘observables and unobservables are equally real’.
This indicates that the account of the realist framework in section three would be mistaken in Psillos’ view.
This could seem to be at tension with the insistence from the previous section that practical, external statements cannot be assertions. However, Carnap himself admits that we can provide theoretical justification for the expediency and fruitfulness of languages with respect to specified aims (Carnap 1950, 36–37). Psillos employs the same idea that given the aims of science there is a fact of the matter as to what ontic framework it is best to employ. Though it is an unforced choice not to act in accordance to this fact, such an act is perhaps best interpreted as signifying a disagreement about the aims. What is it to strive for the aims of science other than to act in the way that can be theoretically justified as the best way to achieve these aims?
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Jaksland, R. A Dilemma for Empirical Realism: Metaphysical Realism or Instrumentalism. Philosophia 45, 1195–1205 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9828-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-017-9828-x