Pragmatic foundations of ontic structural realism

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2010

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Akcin, Haktan

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This thesis defends Epistemic Structural Realism (ESR) against both Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) and Traditional Scientific Realism (TSR). It is argued that TSR cannot properly explain what actually happens throughout radical theory changes in science; in the sense that a plausible version of Scientific Realism should, somehow, satisfy Scientific Anti-Realists’ concerns about the link between “truth” and “success” of our scientific theories. On the other hand, it is claimed that OSR is not a form of Scientific Realism but rather basically a modified form of Pragmatism. To that effect, it is further argued that Modern Physics does not provide convincing reasons to accept the conclusions that advocates of OSR derive from it. It is finally asserted that a Structural Realist understanding of Scientific Explanation is not possible. In that regard, it is argued that a defense of Structural Realism by No Miracle Argument (NMA) against Pessimistic Meta Induction Argument (PMIA) will be effective if and only if the NMA is formulated by the predictive success of scientific theories, rather than constructing it on the explanatory power of them.

Subject Keywords

Realism., Pragmatics.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12612602/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/20174

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

H. Akcin, “Pragmatic foundations of ontic structural realism,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2010.