The Explanationist Defense of Scientific Realism

by Ganson,Dorit A.

• ISBN13: 9780815339649
• ISBN10: 081533964X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-01-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Ganson offers new hope in this work for the defense of scientific realism by undermining powerful anti-realist objections and advocating an abandonment of naturalist and externalist strategies.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(34)
Explanationism	1	(13)
The Debate About Realism and the Constraints of Rationality	1	(4)
Versions of Explanationism/Realism	5	(6)
Externalist vs. Internalist Explanationist Approaches to Defending Realism	11	(3)
Miller's Internalist Explanationism	14	(21)
Introducing Topic-Specific Truisms	14	(2)
A Brief Overview of Miller on Cause, Explanation, and Confirmation	16	(5)
The Role of Truisms in the Explanationist Defense of Realism	21	(2)
Why Truisms are Independent Marks of Rationality	23	(6)
Unfinished Business in Miller's Program	29	(6)
Acausal Models of Explanation	35	(32)
Introduction: The Threat Acausalist Models of Explanation Pose to Contemporary Explanationism	35	(3)
A Brief History of Acausal Models of Explanation	38	(8)
Hume's Legacy and the Deductive-Nomological Model	38	(3)
From the Inductive-Statistical Model to the Statistical Relevance Approach	41	(5)
The Statistical Relevance Model of Explanation	46	(21)
An Outline of the Model and Some Refinements	46x	(50)
The Requirement of Objective Homogeneity	50	(3)
Salmon's Acausal Criteria for Admissible Selection Rules and Ensuing Problems	53	(7)
Difficulties in the Identification of Causal Relevance With Statistical Relevance	60	(7)
Van Fraassen's Arguments against Inference to the Best Explanation	67	(28)
Van Fraassen's Constructive Empiricism	67	(4)
Building a Case Against Explanationism: The Short Arguments	71	(11)
The Scientific Image	71	(6)
Laws and Symmetry	77	(5)
The Bayesian Peter Objection	82	(13)
Van Fraassen's Dutch Book Argument	82	(5)
Flaws in the Argument	87	(5)
Reconciling Explanationism with Bayes' Theorem	92	(3)
Van Fraassen's Dutch Books	95	(30)
A Philosophical Application of the Probability Calculus: Using Dutch Book Arguments to Derive Rationality Constraints	96	(7)
The Principle of Reflection	103	(7)
The Temporally Extended Principle of Reflection	110	(6)
A Prohibition Against Assigning a Probability Value to some Special Conditional Propositions	116	(9)
Varieties of Explanationism and Fine's Critique	125	(36)
Smart's ``Wouldn't It be a Miracle?'' Argument	128	(5)
Boyd's Arguments for Realism	133	(22)
Boyd's Inference to the Best Explanation	133	(4)
Rival Explanans and Explanandum	137	(9)
The Circularity Objection and the Realist Package	146	(9)
Naturalized vs. Non-naturalized Realism	155	(6)
The Transcendental Road to Realism	161	(32)
Fine's Criticisms of Miller's Realism	163	(2)
The True Source of Unreasonable Doubt	165	(11)
Why Taking on Isn't Good Enough	176	(8)
Salvaging Realism about Molecules	184	(9)
Appendix	193	(8)
I. The Realist Account of Broad Empirical Scope (and its Bayesian Justification)	193	(4)
II. Van Fraassen's UnBayesian Rejection of Broad Scope as an Epistemically Relevant Virtue	197	(4)
Works Cited	201	(4)
Index	205