Realist Thesis Research Articles

Akaike and the No Miracle Argument for Scientific Realism

AbstractThe “No Miracle Argument” for scientific realism contends that the only plausible explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories is their truthlikeness, but doesn’t specify what ‘truthlikeness’ means. I argue that if we understand ‘truthlikeness’ in terms of Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, the resulting realist thesis (RKL) is a plausible explanation for science’s success. Still, RKL probably falls short of the realist’s ideal. I argue, however, that the strongest version of realism that the argument can plausibly establish is RKL. The realist needs another argument for establishing a stronger realist thesis.

Politics and War in Historical and Theoretical Perspective. With EU Case Study

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the dominant theoretical paradigms and show their sustainability in the last 150 years, following the historical context of the interrelationship between politics and war. Starting from Clausewitz’s thesis on war as a continuation of politics by other, violent means, the paper thematizes the dominant wars in the twentieth century, World War I and II, their causes and connection with politics, which proves to be an essential element of every war. Namely, war has always been the consequence of political decisions and as such a significant political tool for achieving a certain goal. In this context, the Cold War period unequivocally confirms Clausewitz’s realist thesis, showing that war is not necessarily an armed conflict, but that it is nonetheless a political matter. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, realism and liberalism regained prominence and emerged as significant theories on war and security. Both theories have their roots in the twentieth century, and therefore their paradigm becomes insufficient to answer the new questions posed by the nature of interdependent world. Nevertheless, these theories, especially liberalism, show their practical application and stand at the core of the ideological basis for the formation of the European Union. In this sense, Europe, after centuries of wars fought on its soil, displays the possibility of successful cooperation. As a result, war appears not only as a continuation of politics by violent means, but as a constituent element of systems and states in the modern world.

Morality, politics, and contingency

AbstractThe influential realist thesis that politics and morals are distinct and mutually exclusive spheres of interest is one that has been challenged within the tradition of analytic moral and political theory. Over the last 50 years, several notable liberal analytic philosophers, including Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Thomas Nagel, have argued that not only is politics not separate from and inimical to ethics but that there exists such a thing as political morality. This article contends that while the notion of political morality may make more sense of what is regarded as a central and troubling problem of politics, it also forces us to confront the more fundamental challenge of the radical contingency of our moral and political predicament. Whether analytic political theory is capable of producing a convincing response to the latter challenge remains precariously unclear.

Models, Representation and Truth: On Giere’s Perspectival Realism

Could relativist theses about scientific theories be coherent with realist theses about the relationship between such theories and the physical world? This is the central issue of this paper that we approach, mainly, on Giere’s perspectival realism. We consider that his epistemological relativist theses are plausible and sustainable, but his realist thesis about the representational role that plays the theoretical models with respect to real systems as well as his thesis about true hypotheses are not. After trying to show that, we delineate an epistemological version of conceptual relativism which becomes cognate with Giere’s perspectival claims but that it does not comprise realist claims.

Perspektiven der sozialen Umkehr im Prozess des Wertewandels

A study that is focussed on the conversion from the social sin and on the transformation of the social structures affected by sin must take into account not only the strictly religious and ecclesial field, but also the phenomena in social- community life. According to the way in which the paradigm of the change of values in the society is interpreted and to the consequences that result from it on the realization and organization of life on a personal and social level, in this paper at first it is described a mostly optimistic thesis. In a second step, it is presented a thesis with rather pessimistic tendencies. Finally, a realistic thesis is analyzed, which emphasizes the ambivalence of changing values and highlights the significance of the synthesis of values for a good direction of life in modern society.

Structural losses, structural realism and the stability of Lie algebras

One of the key assumptions associated with structural realism is the claim that successful scientific theories approximately preserve their structurally based content as they are progressively developed and that this content alone can explain their relevant predictions. The precise way in which these theories are preserved is not trivial but, according to this realist thesis, any kind of structural loss should not occur among theoretical transitions. Although group theory has been proven effective in accounting for preserved structures in the context of physics, structural realists are confronted with the fact that even group-theoretic structures are not immune to these structural discontinuities. Under such circumstances, my contribution consists in a two-fold task. Firstly, I will establish a general condition at the level of the group-theoretic structure to avoid the pessimistic induction argument by appealing to Lie algebra deformation and stability theory; and secondly, I will provide a case study associated with quantum-relativistic kinematics to demonstrate that this condition is actually satisfied. Specifically, through this case study I will support the claim that if the full Lie algebras of our current successful theories are stable, it is possible to disregard any kind of structural loss in the future and explain the relevant successful predictions in a way that we can support structural realism accordingly.

Lies and Fabrications. The Cognitive Potential of Pseudos in Plato’s Republic

In this article, I pose the question of what the role of the pseudos theme is in the entire argument of the Republic, which is motivated by a challenge from Thrasymachus, who defined justice as “the advantage of the stronger/ruler.” How can the “beautiful polis” (Kallipolis), based on a “noble falshood” addressed to its rulers in particular, be a good counterargument to the realist Thrasymachus? I show that Plato, wanting to prove that Thrasymachus’s thesis is too narrow and only seemingly realistic description of political reality, explicitly uses the same tool that implicitly lies at the root of the worldview expressed in the rhetorician’s thesis: ideological falsehood. He opposes the ugly ideology (the advantage of the stronger) with a “noble falsehood” (the dogma of love), since falsehood as such is an indispensable structural element of the polis itself, resulting from the weakness of the faculty of reason proper to the human condition. The pseudos theme has a dual function in the Republic: heuristic and structural. First, Plato exposes the implicit ideological falsehood underlying Thrasymachus’s realistic thesis using a falsehood that he [Plato] himself has explicitly proposed. Second, he presents falsehood as a component of the political, which compensates for human ignorance and exploits human susceptibility to normative and cultural implementations.

Being realistic and demanding the impossible

Characterising realism by contrasting it with moralism leaves open several questions to do with realism’s practical import. If political judgment is not to be derived — exclusively or at all — from pre-political moral commitments, what scope is there for genuinely normative political thinking? And even if there is some scope for political normativity, does realism’s reliance on interpretations of political practices condemn it to some form of status quo bias? In this paper I address those questions. My main aim is to assuage some worries about realism’s alleged conservative tendencies. I argue that there is an important sense in which realists can support radical and even unachievable political change — one can be realistic and demand the impossible, as the soixante- huitard slogan goes. To see how that may be the case one needs to characterise realism by contrasting it with both non-ideal theory and utopianism. In a nutshell, realism differs from non- ideal theory because it need not be concerned with feasibility constraints, and it differs from utopianism because it eschews detailed blueprints of the perfect polity.

Introspection and Primacy of Perception: A Critical Reflection on Naïve Realism

A fundamental issue in philosophy of perception is to understand the nature of experience and the relation of the experience with objects or states of affairs that is experienced. A prominent philosophical issue here is posed by the possibility of hallucinatory experiences, which are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception for the experiencer. The philosophical views in this matter can be grouped into three major positions on the basis of the nature of the subjective experience and relation of the subjective experience with the object. These are the sense-data theories—which consider that the objects of perception are mental entities; the representative theories—according to which perception is a representation of the objects in the external world; and the naive realist theories—which proclaim that the external objects are constitutive of the very perceptual experience and not a representation of it. Naive realism claims it is the defence of common-sense notion regarding experience i.e. how experience seems to the experiencer upon introspective reflection on it. This position has a growing number of proponents in philosophy especially in the last two decades. But it also entails radical departure of established philosophical views regarding the nature of experience, the phenomenal character of experience, and the experiencer–object relation. In this paper, we critically examine naive realism from two crucial aspects pertaining to it—the question of introspection being basis of naive realist thesis, and the notion of primacy of perception over non-veridical forms of experiences. We find that there are significant problems which weaken the naive realist thesis.

Reconstructing Probabilistic Realism: Re-enacting Syntactical Structures

Probabilistic realism and syntactical positivism were two among outdated theories that Feigl criticised on account of their semantical poverty. In this paper, I argue that a refined version of probabilistic realism, which relies on what Feigl specified as the pragmatic description of the symbolic behaviour of scientists’ estimations and foresight, is defendable. This version of statistical realism does not need to make the plausibility of realist thesis dependent on the conventional acceptance of a constructed semantic metalanguage. I shall rely on the Prediction Error Minimisation theory (PEM) to support my probabilistic version of realism with a scientifically-informed and naturalistically plausible statistical account of the theories-world relationship which has a pragmatic ring to it.

La “contradicción fundamental” en el movimiento critical legal studies

Como heredero del realismo jurídico estadounidense de principios del siglo XX, el movimiento Critical Legal Studies –en adelante CLSenarbola la bandera de la indeterminación del Derecho. Sin embargo, va más allá de la tesis realista y sostiene que tal no obedece a un mero problema lingüístico o formal sino a una verdadera manifestación de una “contradicción” o una serie de contradicciones sustantivas que subyacen al liberalismo, entendido como tradición ideológica, económica y política sobre la que se ha construido el modo de vida estadounidense.
 El objeto de este trabajo es describir en qué consiste esta “contradicción” desde la perspectiva de los miembros de CLS, así como de los autores que, tanto en Europa como en América Latina, la han analizado –si así ha sido- . Para lograrlo será menester previamente: i) trazar un esquema general que permita comprender, a grandes rasgos, lo que CLS es y defende; ii) abordar los trabajos “paradigmáticos” al interior del movimiento CLS sobre la contradicción, particularmente los producidos por Duncan Kennedy; iii) revisar si en la literatura europea y latinoamericana esta idea ha tenido repercusión y, de ser así, cómo se ha efectuado su análisis.

La rehabilitación de la noción de representación en Toulmin (o un intento de reformular a Kant en términos wittgensteinianos)

Frente a los ataques de las corrientes “antirrepresentacionalistas”, se presenta el análisis de Toulmin, que considera que la noción de representación es imprescindible para comprender la naturaleza de la actividad cognoscitiva. Comparte con Kant la idea de que nuestras actividades intelectuales imponen formas a priori, pero señala que la utilización del término alemán Vorstellung en la obra de Kant, hizo que su objetivo trascendental quedara atrapado en las redes de representaciones internas o mentales.
 La noción de representación que maneja, mediatizada por el giro pragmático wittgensteniano, es lo suficientemente compleja como para no quedar reducida a mera expresión lingüística, ni a un contenido mental individual. La adopción de esta estrategia representacional no implica compromiso alguno con la pretensión realista ontológica de «describir la realidad tal cual es en sí misma», ni con la tesis del realismo semántico de la referencia directa. Las consideraciones pragmáticas acerca de las relaciones entre conocimiento, lenguaje y prácticas humanas ofrecen una alternativa superadora en relación a posiciones reductivas.

La dimensión fractal del teatro en el cine argentino contemporáneo: formas que se asemejan en diferentes escalas

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar o texto dramático Fractal. Una especulación científica (2000) - trabalho de criação coletiva escrito e dirigido por Rafael Spregelburd - no contexto de produção do teatro dos anos noventa no cinema argentino contemporâneo, considerando-o como uma articulação entre as duas formas de arte. Por um lado, porque condensa muito dos procedimentos utilizados no teatro da década de noventa que entranham uma determinada concepção de prática cênica, do processo de construção e da relação entre teatro e realidade que caracterizam especificamente o chamado teatro de desintegração (PELLETTIERI, 2000; RODRÍGUEZ, 2000). Tais procedimentos são a alienação e a preocupação com a linguagem, a desintegração da concepção tradicional do personagem, a interação, não defender uma tese realista e empregar elementos absurdos. Por outro lado, porque acreditamos que é um precedente chave do cinema que chamamos pós-dramático pela repetição, em outra escala, das operações narrativas e estruturais, o status dos personagens e a construção interativa ou efeito borboleta das cenas, elementos a serem discutidos no filme Viola (2012, Matías Piñeiro).

Did Ptolemy make novel predictions? Launching Ptolemaic astronomy into the scientific realism debate

The goal of this paper, both historical and philosophical, is to launch a new case into the scientific realism debate: geocentric astronomy. Scientific realism about unobservables claims that the non-observational content of our successful/justified empirical theories is true, or approximately true. The argument that is currently considered the best in favor of scientific realism is the No Miracles Argument: the predictive success of a theory that makes (novel) observational predictions while making use of non-observational content would be inexplicable unless such non-observational content approximately corresponds to the world “out there”. Laudan's pessimistic meta-induction challenged this argument, and realists reacted by moving to a “selective” version of realism: the approximately true part of the theory is not its full non-observational content but only the part of it that is responsible for the novel, successful observational predictions. Selective scientific realism has been tested against some of the theories in Laudan's list, but the first member of this list, geocentric astronomy, has been traditionally ignored. Our goal here is to defend that Ptolemy's Geocentrism deserves attention and poses a prima facie strong case against selective realism, since it made several successful, novel predictions based on theoretical hypotheses that do not seem to be retained, not even approximately, by posterior theories. Here, though, we confine our work just to the detailed reconstruction of what we take to be the main novel, successful Ptolemaic predictions, leaving the full analysis and assessment of their significance for the realist thesis to future works.

For or against structural realism? A verdict from high energy physics

When it comes to supporting the main ontic structural realist thesis, that we are better off with a metaphysics purged of objects, its proponents have to meet several challenges, three of which are to ensure that objects can be recast in terms of structure alone at both the level of theory and the level of ontology, to justify on physical grounds that structure exists in the world in a way that affects the goings-on in it, and to show that the relation between objects and structure is non-reciprocal, so that structure is ontologically prior to objects but not the converse. Assuming—tacitly or explicitly—that the objects of physics can be thus recast using symmetry group structure, supporters of the thesis have, therefore, to meet the remaining challenges. The present paper discusses and contests two such attempts, which typify arguments in favor of ontic structural realism from high-energy physics.

Shrinking Democracy with Law

The Australian federal government - and several state governments - are currently seeking to use law to reduce the democratic space available to Australian citizens and even future governments. Legal realist theory tells us that law follows power, in contrast to the legal positivist view that law's development follows its own internal rules of logic. In Australia today, the realist thesis is evidenced by several laws currently being pursued or considered by the Australian government, acting under the influence of corporate pressure. Four particularly striking examples illustrate this illiberal and alarming trend.

The Nominalist’s Gambit and the Structure of Predication

Abstract Call the realist thesis that the truth of statements of the form “a is F” entails the existence of properties only via the schema “a is F iff a instantiates F-ness” introductionism; call the nominalist thesis that the schema “a is F iff a instantiates F-ness” doesn’t really introduce properties into the domain of discourse anti-introductionism. I’ll show that both introductionism and anti-introductionism presuppose two crucial assumptions concerning abstract singular terms and predicates, that in turn constitute the pivots of an (allegedly) cogent argument against realism, that is the so-called nominalist’s gambit. Moreover, moving from the phenomenon that I’ll call property-anaphora, I hold that these presuppositions are reciprocally incompatible. I’ll conclude that introductionism and anti-introductionism are positions based on an inconsistent ground, and that the nominalist’s gambit is without force.

Scientific understanding: truth or dare?

It is often claimed—especially by scientific realists—that science provides understanding of the world only if its theories are (at least approximately) true descriptions of reality, in its observable as well as unobservable aspects. This paper critically examines this ‘realist thesis’ concerning understanding. A crucial problem for the realist thesis is that (as study of the history and practice of science reveals) understanding is frequently obtained via theories and models that appear to be highly unrealistic or even completely fictional. So we face the dilemma of either giving up the realist thesis that understanding requires truth, or allowing for the possibility that in many if not all practical cases we do not have scientific understanding. I will argue that the first horn is preferable: the link between understanding and truth can be severed. This becomes a live option if we abandon the traditional view that scientific understanding is a special type of knowledge. While this view implies that understanding must be factive, I avoid this implication by identifying understanding with a skill rather than with knowledge. I will develop the idea that understanding phenomena consists in the ability to use a theory to generate predictions of the target system’s behavior. This implies that the crucial condition for understanding is not truth but intelligibility of the theory, where intelligibility is defined as the value that scientists attribute to the theoretical virtues that facilitate the construction of models of the phenomena. I will show, first, that my account accords with the way practicing scientists conceive of understanding, and second, that it allows for the use of idealized or fictional models and theories in achieving understanding.

Tesis de la carga teórica de la observación y constructivismo

The Thesis of Theory-Laden [TTL] holds that is not possible a neutral observation. From this thesis, some philosophers have inferred that the facts, i.e., the subject’s independent reality, do not exist or that they are social constructions only. The aim of this paper is assess if TTL necessarily implies a constructivist point of view or if, conversely, we can still speak about the reality. In order to do this, we will clarify these terms: “the theoryladenness of observation” and “constructivism”. Then, we will argue that although TTL is possible, we are not committed to constructivism, and on the contrary, TTL can be an interesting frame to the realistic thesis. Finally, we will point out the impact this had has when evaluating many epistemological proposals.

Engagement and Metaphysical Dissatisfaction

As Barry Stroud sees it, the journey from engagement to metaphysical dissatisfaction has four stages.1 First, we embark on the project of acquiring some especially metaphysical insight into how the world is with respect to some region of our thought about it – say evaluative, or modal or causal thought. The insight that we seek is especially metaphysical when we aspire to go beyond the insight that we gain about the world when we make warranted and true judgements that are the characteristic of that specific way of thought itself. Thus, no especially metaphysical insight is delivered by realizing that it is better to let the guilty go free than to punish the innocent, or that there could not be a true contradiction or that consumption of alcohol alters the mood. What metaphysicians are after, rather, are insights along the lines that there is (or there is not) something evaluative, or something modal or some causal connexion in the world itself and independently of us. Secondly, a special threat to the feasibility of this distinctively metaphysical project arises wherever a specific region of our thought has the special combination of features of irreducibility (of a certain kind) and indispensability (of a certain kind). Thirdly, that threat emerges in the first instance from the attempt to sustain the metaphysical position that many would characterize as anti-realistic (although Stroud does not use that term). The problem is that a certain aporia is implicit in such an attempt to combine the thought that the world is a certain way – with respect to value, modality or causation – (as we must, in line with indispensability) with the further thought that it is not ‘really’ that way. To be clear, the suggestion is not that the conjunction of these thoughts is inconsistent. Nor is it the case that any consideration at our disposal makes it the case, and far less does any show it to be the case, that the relevant metaphysical thesis is false. The predicament is of the theorist rather than of the theory. It has the character of a Moorean quasi-inconsistency, as were we to attempt to claim, ‘It is not the case that P, but I believe that P’ (137), or as intimated by Stroud’s epigrammatic quotation of Wittgenstein, ‘If there were a verb meaning, “to believe falsely”, it would not have a meaningful first person present indicative’. The anti-realist position about value, causation or modality is not properly assertible by anyone who is also engaged in the intellectual practice of thinking about things in evaluative or causal or modal terms. Fourthly, the predicament of the would-be anti-realist does not confer victory, by default or otherwise, on her realist opponent. As with the anti-realist position, and even after the limitations of the anti-realist position have been demonstrated, no available consideration makes it the case, and far less does any show it to be the case, that the contrasting realist thesis is true. As with the anti-realist position, we have a metaphysical claim that has a truth-condition, and one that for all we know is satisfied, but which is never legitimately available to us to assert. And so, at the end of our journey, we find that no thesis of the especially metaphysical kind that we sought to establish at the outset is available to us (in a significant range of cases) to assert legitimately.