Explanatory failures of relative realism

Journal title EPISTEMOLOGIA
Author/s Seungbae Park
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1
Language Italian Pages 13 P. 18-30 File size 61 KB
DOI 10.3280/EPIS2015-001002
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Scientific realism (Putnam 1975; Psillos 1999) and relative realism (Mizrahi 2013) claim that successful scientific theories are approximately true and comparatively true, respectively. A theory is approximately true if and only if it is close to the truth. A theory is comparatively true if and only if it is closer to the truth than its competitors are. I argue that relative realism is more skeptical about the claims of science than it initially appears to be and that it can explain neither the success nor the failure of science. Hence, it is not a promising competitor to scientific realism.

Il realismo scientifico (Putnam 1975; Psillos 1999) e il realismo relativo (Mizrahi 2013) affermano che le teorie scientifiche che hanno avuto successo sono approssimativamente vere e, rispettivamente, comparativamente vere. Una teoria è approssimativamente vera, se e solo se è vicina alla verità. Una teoria è comparativamente vera, se e solo se è più vicina alla verità delle teorie in competizione. Sostengo che il realismo relativo è più scettico rispetto alle pretese della scienza di quanto appaia a prima vista e che non riesce a spiegare né il successo né l’insuccesso della scienza. Il realismo moderato, quindi, non rappresenta un promettente rivale del realismo scientifico.

Keywords: Failure of science, relative realism, scientific realism, success of science.

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Seungbae Park, Explanatory failures of relative realism in "EPISTEMOLOGIA" 1/2015, pp 18-30, DOI: 10.3280/EPIS2015-001002