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E-book: Counterfactuals and Scientific Realism

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Scientific realism is the view that the sciences aim to discover scientific theories that are true, or at least approximately true. Scientific realism is widely accepted by both scientists and philosophers of science. However, in practice - and perhaps even in principle - scientists are forced to simplify theories by idealizing. So some more skeptical philosophers of science have questioned the acceptability of scientific realism because they claim that theories involving idealizations are not even approximately true. This book is an attempt to show that scientific realism is compatible with the presence of idealization in the sciences. The main contention of this book is that idealized theories can be treated as counterfactuals about how things are in worlds that are similar to but simpler than the actual world. So understood it is clear that they have perfectly ordinary truth conditions. So, scientific theories that incorporate idealizations can be true despite the objections of anti-realists.
Series Editor's Foreword x
Introduction 1(10)
I.1 Preliminaries and outline of project
1(10)
1 The Concept of Idealization
11(36)
1.1 Idealization and the sciences
11(3)
1.2 The function of idealization
14(3)
1.3 Truth and idealization
17(2)
1.4 Idealization and simplification
19(2)
1.5 Model/world complexity and simplicity
21(3)
1.6 Idealization and representation
24(2)
1.7 The `is an idealization of' relation
26(1)
1.8 Admissible idealizing assumptions
26(1)
1.9 More on the representational nature of idealization
27(2)
1.10 Basic terminology
29(1)
1.11 Prediction, explanation, and idealization
30(2)
1.12 Theoretical idealizations
32(3)
1.13 Non-constructive idealizations
35(5)
1.14 Constructive idealizations
40(1)
1.15 Non-theoretical idealizations
41(6)
2 The Ubiquity of Idealization and Its Logic
47(54)
2.1 Introduction
47(2)
2.2 Cartwright's anti-realism and the ubiquity of idealizing assumptions
49(3)
2.3 The ineliminability of idealizations thesis
52(2)
2.4 An aside on the use of the terms `idealization' and `abstraction'
54(2)
2.5 The ubiquity thesis and the logic of idealization
56(2)
2.6 The strong ubiquity thesis and the weak ubiquity thesis
58(2)
2.7 A problem for scientific realism
60(2)
2.8 More on the idealization-based attacks on realism
62(1)
2.9 Ubiquity, eliminability, and representation
63(1)
2.10 The virtues of simplicity and the nature of theoretical claims
64(5)
2.11 Nowak's objection
69(12)
2.12 Idealization and counterfactuals
81(2)
2.13 The Tightness of counterfactuals and idealizing counterfactuals
83(3)
2.14 The logic of idealization: VI
86(3)
2.15 The completeness of possible worlds
89(1)
2.16 The idealization relation
90(5)
2.17 Why accept VI as the logic of idealization?
95(6)
3 Epistemic Access, Confirmation, and Idealization
101(44)
3.1 Confirmation, idealization, and the epistemic access problem
101(4)
3.2 The ubiquity thesis and de facto confirmation
105(4)
3.3 Hypothetico-deductivism
109(2)
3.4 The instance theory of confirmation and Hempel's theory of confirmation
111(2)
3.5 Frequencies of idealized events
113(2)
3.6 Probabilities and confirming idealizing counterfactuals
115(1)
3.7 Bayesianism and idealizing counterfactuals
116(1)
3.8 The basics of Bayesian confirmation theory
117(5)
3.9 A problem for Bayesian confirmation theory
122(2)
3.10 Prospects for a solution to the Bayesian problem of idealization
124(1)
3.11 Lewis' concept of imaging
125(2)
3.12 The AGM/Levi approach to conditionals
127(4)
3.13 Bennett's hybrid view
131(2)
3.14 Jones' defense of Bayesianism
133(4)
3.15 A Nowakian response
137(2)
3.16 Provisional conclusions and prognoses
139(6)
4 Idealization, Inference to the Best Explanation, and Scientific Realism
145(49)
4.1 Idealization and inference to the best explanation
145(1)
4.2 Desiderata for a theory of inference to the best explanation
146(1)
4.3 What is an explanation?
147(2)
4.4 The best answers to why-questions
149(1)
4.5 Contextualism and degrees of explanatoriness
149(6)
4.6 A formal account of inference to the best explanation
155(2)
4.7 What it takes (minimally) to be an explanation
157(2)
4.8 The contextual aspects of explanation
159(1)
4.9 When are we justified in claiming that something has been explained?
160(3)
4.10 The probative nature of inference to the best explanation, likelihoods, and the acceptance of theories
163(4)
4.11 Further norms, evidence, and the variety of explanatory practices
167(4)
4.12 Answering the explanatory regress argument and the argument from unconfirmability
171(2)
4.13 Refuting the argument form misrepresentation
173(3)
4.14 Scientific realism and its varieties
176(2)
4.15 Realisms
178(7)
4.16 The ontological status of idealized models/worlds
185(2)
4.17 The realism/anti-realism debate and the many aims of science
187(7)
References 194(13)
Index 207
MICHAEL SHAFFER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Cloud State University, USA. He is the author of The Experimental Turn and the Methods of Philosophy, co-editor of What Place for the A Priori? and has published many articles about epistemology, logic and the philosophy of science.
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