The Explanationist Defense of Scientific Realism

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ISBN: 9780815339649 | 081533964X
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 1/25/2001

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Summary

Supplemental Materials

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.

Preface

xiii

Introduction

(34)

Explanationism

(13)

The Debate About Realism and the Constraints of Rationality

(4)

Versions of Explanationism/Realism

(6)

Externalist vs. Internalist Explanationist Approaches to Defending Realism

(3)

Miller's Internalist Explanationism

(21)

Introducing Topic-Specific Truisms

(2)

A Brief Overview of Miller on Cause, Explanation, and Confirmation

(5)

The Role of Truisms in the Explanationist Defense of Realism

(2)

Why Truisms are Independent Marks of Rationality

(6)

Unfinished Business in Miller's Program

(6)

Acausal Models of Explanation

(32)

Introduction: The Threat Acausalist Models of Explanation Pose to Contemporary Explanationism

(3)

A Brief History of Acausal Models of Explanation

(8)

Hume's Legacy and the Deductive-Nomological Model

(3)

From the Inductive-Statistical Model to the Statistical Relevance Approach

(5)

The Statistical Relevance Model of Explanation

(21)

An Outline of the Model and Some Refinements

46x

(50)

The Requirement of Objective Homogeneity

(3)

Salmon's Acausal Criteria for Admissible Selection Rules and Ensuing Problems

(7)

Difficulties in the Identification of Causal Relevance With Statistical Relevance

(7)

Van Fraassen's Arguments against Inference to the Best Explanation

(28)

Van Fraassen's Constructive Empiricism

(4)

Building a Case Against Explanationism: The Short Arguments

(11)

The Scientific Image

(6)

Laws and Symmetry

(5)

The Bayesian Peter Objection

(13)

Van Fraassen's Dutch Book Argument

(5)

Flaws in the Argument

(5)

Reconciling Explanationism with Bayes' Theorem

(3)

Van Fraassen's Dutch Books

(30)

A Philosophical Application of the Probability Calculus: Using Dutch Book Arguments to Derive Rationality Constraints

(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

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The Explanationist Defense of Scientific Realism

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials