Overview
- Introduces the key arguments and positions in the scientific realism/antirealism debate
- Examines the key arguments for and against scientific realism in a rigorous manner
- Develops a position that provides a middle-ground between scientific realism and antirealism
Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 431)
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About this book
This book offers a close and rigorous examination of the arguments for and against scientific realism and introduces key positions in the scientific realism/antirealism debate, which is one of the central debates in contemporary philosophy of science. On the one hand, scientific realists argue that we have good reasons to believe that our best scientific theories are approximately true because, if they were not even approximately true, they would not be able to explain and predict natural phenomena with such impressive accuracy. On the other hand, antirealists argue that the success of science does not warrant belief in the approximate truth of our best scientific theories. This is because the history of science is a graveyard of theories that were once successful but were later discarded. The author eventually settles on a middle-ground position between scientific realism and antirealism called “relative realism”.
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Moti Mizrahi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Institute of Technology. He is the editor of The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation? (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). He is an Associate and Book Reviews Editor of Philosophia (Springer). He has published extensively on the philosophy of science, the scientific realism/antirealism debate, the epistemology of philosophy, and argumentation. His work has appeared in journals such as Argumentation, Erkenntnis, Philosophical Studies, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, and Synthese.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Relativity of Theory
Book Subtitle: Key Positions and Arguments in the Contemporary Scientific Realism/Antirealism Debate
Authors: Moti Mizrahi
Series Title: Synthese Library
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58047-6
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-58046-9Published: 30 September 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-58049-0Published: 01 October 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-58047-6Published: 29 September 2020
Series ISSN: 0166-6991
Series E-ISSN: 2542-8292
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 171
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics