In this chapter, I argue that the theoretical framework that Mary Hesse outlines in her seminal work Forces and Fields (Hesse, Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics, Greenwood Press, 1961) may help us to address the challenge to scientific realism posed by the Pessimistic Meta-Induction (PMI) argument. To do so, I will draw upon Hesse’s idea of satisfactory models to account for scientific theories. I aim to provide a new framework within which both the epistemic stance of scientific realism, whose defense is mostly based on the ‘No Miracle Argument’, and the PMI argument can be reformulated without referring to such terms as ‘success’ and ‘truth’. This is crucial to me since both terms are central to the PMI argument and hence getting rid of them may undermine its effectiveness.

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Mary Hesse and the Contemporary Realism Debate

  • Laura Bujalance

摘要

In this chapter, I argue that the theoretical framework that Mary Hesse outlines in her seminal work Forces and Fields (Hesse, Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics, Greenwood Press, 1961) may help us to address the challenge to scientific realism posed by the Pessimistic Meta-Induction (PMI) argument. To do so, I will draw upon Hesse’s idea of satisfactory models to account for scientific theories. I aim to provide a new framework within which both the epistemic stance of scientific realism, whose defense is mostly based on the ‘No Miracle Argument’, and the PMI argument can be reformulated without referring to such terms as ‘success’ and ‘truth’. This is crucial to me since both terms are central to the PMI argument and hence getting rid of them may undermine its effectiveness.