Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science

The aim of this book is to articulate and defend a scientific realist philosophy of science, and to formulate scientific realism in as clear a manner as possible. – The papers which make up the content of this book have all been published previously : – Chapter 1, «Scientific realism», consists of material drawn from two articles : «What is scientific realism ?», Divinatio 12 (2000), 103-120, and «Scientific realism : an elaboration and a defense», Theoria 98 (2001), 35-54; – Chapter 2, «The God’s eye point of view», was originally published as «Scientific realism and the God’s eye point of view» in Epistemologia XXVII (2004), 211-226. It includes as an appendix a section from «Realism without limits», Divinatio 20 (2004), 145-165; – Chapter 3, «Truth and entity realism», was originally published as «The semantic stance of scientific entity realism» in Philosophia 24, 3-4 (1995), 405-415; – Chapter 4, «Incommensurability and the language of science», combines material which orifinally appeared in «The language of science : meaning variance and theory comparison», Language sciences 22 (2000), 117-136 and «Incommensurability : the current state of play», Theoria 12, 3 (1997), 425-445; – Chapter 5, «Induction and natural kinds», was originally published in Principia 1, 2 (1997), 239-254; – Chapter 6, «Methodological pluralism, normative naturalism and the realist aim of science», was originally published in R. Nola and H. Sankey (eds), After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend : recent issues in theories of scientific methods, Australasian studies in history and philosophy of science, Volume 15 (Dordrecht : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), 211-229; – Chapter 7, «Realism, method and truth», was originally published in M. Marsonet (ed.), The Problem of realism (Aldershot : Ashgate, 2002), 64-81; – Chapter 8, «Why is it rational to believe scientific theories are true ?», was originally published in C. Cheyne and J. Worrall (eds), Rationality and reality : conversations with Alan Musgrave (Dordrecht : Springer, 2006), 109-132. M.-M. V.