Thomson Paul Evolutionary Epistemology And Scientific Realism英文电子书.pdf

Evolutionary Epistemology and Scientific Realism Paul Thomson Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny. -Nietzsche, The Guy Science, #l IO’ Recent critical discussions of scientific realism, particularly those of Bas van Fraassen (1980, 1982, 1985, 1989) and Larry Laudan (1977, 1981a,b), have tended to focus more on the weakness of traditional arguments for scientific realism than on problems with the position itself. One response to this kind of criticism (for example, Ellis, 1990, Hacking 1984,1985,1988; and Kitcher, 1993)has been a series of new formulations of realism which preserve the important features of the view. New and ingenious arguments are then found to support these hybrid realisms. Another kind of defense admits the weakness of independent arguments for realism, but maintains that because it is coherent and attractive, problems with alternative positions make scientific realism the position of choice.’ From an anti-realist perspective, an argument against the core position of scientific realism itself, thus blocking these kinds of responses, would be welcome. The aim of this article is to provide such an argument. Characterizations of scientific realism abound,3 but I take the core position to be something like this: Reasons for accepting