Cornelis de Waal

The scientific realism debate directly addresses the relation between human thought and the reality in which it finds itself. A core question: can we justifiably believe that science accurately describes the reality that lies beneath the limits of human experience? Exploring this question, Lyons begins at the most foundational level of scientific realism, the endeavor to justify belief in the existence of unobservables by way of abduction. Raising anti-realist challenges, some much discussed in the literature but also some generally overlooked, Lyons works his way toward more refined variants of scientific realism. Because scientific realism is taken to be the default position of many—scientific realists themselves often assuming it is the default position of scientists—the emphasis will be on the challenges. Those challenges also motivate the variants of scientific realism traced. Lyons concludes with a brief articulation of his own position, Socratic scientific realism.