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29Mario Bunge’s Scientific Approach to RealismIn Mario Augusto Bunge, Michael R. Matthews, Guillermo M. Denegri, Eduardo L. Ortiz, Heinz W. Droste, Alberto Cordero, Pierre Deleporte, María Manzano, Manuel Crescencio Moreno, Dominique Raynaud, Íñigo Ongay de Felipe, Nicholas Rescher, Richard T. W. Arthur, Rögnvaldur D. Ingthorsson, Evandro Agazzi, Ingvar Johansson, Joseph Agassi, Nimrod Bar-Am, Alberto Cupani, Gustavo E. Romero, Andrés Rivadulla, Art Hobson, Olival Freire Junior, Peter Slezak, Ignacio Morgado-Bernal, Marta Crivos, Leonardo Ivarola, Andreas Pickel, Russell Blackford, Michael Kary, A. Z. Obiedat, Carolina I. García Curilaf, Rafael González del Solar, Luis Marone, Javier Lopez de Casenave, Francisco Yannarella, Mauro A. E. Chaparro, José Geiser Villavicencio- Pulido, Martín Orensanz, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Reinhard Kahle, Ibrahim A. Halloun, José María Gil, Omar Ahmad, Byron Kaldis, Marc Silberstein, Carolina I. García Curilaf, Rafael González del Solar, Javier Lopez de Casenave, Íñigo Ongay de Felipe & Villavicencio-Pulid (eds.), Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift, Springer Verlag. pp. 83-100. 2019.The first half of this article follows Mario Bunge’s early realist moves, his efforts to articulate the achievements of theoretical physics as gains in the quest for objective truth and understanding, particularly in the context of the fights against the idealist and subjectivist interpretations of quantum mechanics that, at least until the mid-1970s, prevailed in physics. Bunge’s answers to the problems of quantum mechanics provide a good angle for understanding how his realist positions grew o…Read more
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19Selecting the Next GenerationAxiomathes 30 (6): 667-683. 2020.This paper discusses one area of the interface between science and ethics: the genetic manipulation and design of human beings. Genetic interventions are an increasingly powerful eugenic resource, but they raise ethical suspicions. Critics condemn them, alleging severe negative consequences for society and the manipulated individuals involved. I analyze some influential general arguments proposed against artificially selecting the next generation and conclude that the arguments are insufficient …Read more
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19Selective realist projects have made significant improvements over the last two decades. Judging by the literature, however, antirealist quarters seem little impressed with the results. Section I considers the selectivist case and its perceived shortcomings. One shortcoming is that selectivist offerings are nuanced in ways that deprive them of features that—according to many—cannot be absent from any realism “worth having”. Section II considers eight features widely required of realist positions…Read more
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67Rejected Posits, Realism, and the History of ScienceIn Henk W. de Regt (ed.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009, Springer. pp. 23--32. 2011.Summary: Responding to Laudan’s skeptical reading of history an influential group of realists claim that the seriously wrong claims past successful theories licensed were not really implicated in the predictions that once singled them out as successful. For example, in the case of Fresnel’s theory of light, it is said that although he appealed to the ether he didn’t actually need to in order to derive his famous experimental predictions—in them, we are assured, the ether concept was “idle,” “ine…Read more
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11Philosophy of scienceIn Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte & Otávio Bueno (eds.), A Companion to Latin American Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Argentina Mexico Brazil Chile and Puerto Rico Peru Other Centers Concluding Remarks References Further Reading.
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5La ciencia y el ideal contemporáneo de excelenciaAreté. Revista de Filosofía 11 (1-2): 773-794. 1999.
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27Epistemology and "the social" in contemporary natural sciencePoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 96 (1): 129-142. 2008.Philosophers of science disagree on the extent to which epistemology transcends the social sphere in mature branches of science. In this paper I suggest a way of vindicating a key aspect of the transcendence thesis without questioning the social nature of science. Such vindication requires epistemological autonomy to prevail along channels having to do with (1) selection of research goals, (2) use of human subjects and public resources in research, (3) social interventions aimed at helping scien…Read more
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47Theory-Parts for Scientific RealistsIn Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 153--165. 2013.
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10Arguing for Hidden RealitiesPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 55 148-165. 1997.
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60Realism and underdetermination: Some clues from the practices-upProceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2001 (3). 2000.Recent attempts to turn Standard Quantum Theory into a coherent representational system have improved markedly over previous offerings. Important questions about the nature of material systems remain open, however, as current theorizing effectively resolves into a multiplicity of incompatible statements about the nature of physical systems. Specifically, the most cogent proposals to date land in effective empirical equivalence, reviving old anti-realist fears about quantum physics. In this paper…Read more
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36On the Growing Complementarity of Science and TechnologyTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 4 (2): 86-92. 1998.
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25Holly Ramona: La ciencia y el ideal contemporáneo de excelenciaAreté. Revista de Filosofía 11 (1). 1999.According to an old way of thinking, any leve! of problematicity with respect to truth or theory dependence suffices to spoil the objectivity of a proposal. No credible discourse complies with such restrictions. Far from compromising the existence of knowledge, correct and incorrect, rational and nonrational ideas, however. the said old way of thinking is simply incapable of representing the cognitive achievements that we actually have. This paper discusses a contemporary way of approaching the …Read more
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46Diachronic Realism about Successful TheoriesProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43 51-66. 2008.The success of a scientific theory T is not an all-or-nothing matter; nor is a theory something one can usually accept or reject in toto (i.e. one may take T as being "approximately true", or take as true just certain "parts" of it, without necessarily affirming every posit and claim specific to T as being either completely right or completely wrong). This, however, raises questions about precisely which parts of T deserve to be taken as approximately true. on the basis of its success. A line of…Read more
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2Sobre el mito de que el realismo científico ha muertoAreté. Revista de Filosofía 21 (2): 363-379. 2009.
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14Practical Reasoning in the Foundations of Quantum TheoryIn Dag Prawitz & Dag Westerståhl (eds.), Logic and Philosophy of Science in Uppsala: Papers From the 9th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 439--452. 1994.
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106Explanatory Elucidation and Scientific RealismEpistemologia 1 59-70. 2012.Explanatory elucidation occurs when a theory has one or more of its assumptions explained by another independently successful theory. Because explanatory elucidation springs from independently supported theories, it improves the credibility of the assumptions it casts light on, hence its relevance for realists. But cases can be pointed to where explanatory elucidation has badly failed to identify truthful components. One way to address this challenge is by trying to find additional epistemic sup…Read more
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81Are GRW tails as bad as they say?Philosophy of Science 66 (3): 71. 1999.GRW models of the physical world are criticized in the literature for involving wave function "tails" that allegedly create fatal interpretive problems and even compromise standard arithmetic. I find such objections both unfair and misguided. But not all is well with the GRW approach. One complaint I articulate in this paper does not have to do with tails as such but with the specific way in which past physical structures linger forever in the total GRW wave function. By pushing the total propos…Read more
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44Realism and Underdetermination: Some Clues from the Practices-UpPhilosophy of Science 68 (S3). 2001.Recent attempts to turn Standard Quantum Theory into a coherent representational system have improved markedly over previous offerings. Important questions about the nature of material systems remain open, however, as current theorizing effectively resolves into a multiplicity of incompatible statements about the nature of physical systems. Specifically, the most cogent proposals to date land in effective empirical equivalence, reviving old anti-realist fears about quantum physics. In this paper…Read more
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Possibility, actuality, and the growth of imagination: The many-worlds approach to quantum physicsOntology Studies: Cuadernos de Ontología 93-102. 2008.Las interpretaciónes de la física cuántica de Everett-DeWitt hablan de una multiplicidad de mundos físicamente coexistenrtes. Éstas imaginativas reacciones a los problemas conceptuales de la mecánica cuántica estándar forman una família de propuestas de “universos múltiples” que, sin pleno éxito, han sido tachadas de incoherentes.Everett-DeWitt interpretations of quantum physics speak of a multiplicity of physically coexisting worlds. These imaginative reactions to the conceptual problems of sta…Read more
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9Interpreting State Reduction from the Practices-UpPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990 263-275. 1990.This paper examines some physical sources of the concept of objective state reduction in quantum mechanics. Using case studies from nuclear physics and quantum chemistry, the question of whether one can induce a collapse theory from the practices of scientists working on specific problems is considered. A specific proposal is explored, with emphasis on such features as coherence, testability, unifying power and fertility. It is shown that, contrary to recent suggestions by David Albert, collapse…Read more
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22Diachronic Realism about Successful TheoriesProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 43 51-66. 2008.The success of a scientific theory T is not an all-or-nothing matter; nor is a theory something one can usually accept or reject in toto (i.e. one may take T as being "approximately true", or take as true just certain "parts" of it, without necessarily affirming every posit and claim specific to T as being either completely right or completely wrong). This, however, raises questions about precisely which parts of T deserve to be taken as approximately true. on the basis of its success. A line of…Read more
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20Pluralism, Scientific Values, and the Value of ScienceIn Evandro Agazzi & Fabio Minazzi (eds.), Science and ethics: the axiological contexts of science, P.i.e. Peter Lang. pp. 101--114. 2008.
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