Ioannis Votsis

Structural realists of nearly all stripes endorse the structural continuity claim. Roughly speaking, this is the claim that the structure of successful scientific theories survives theory change because it has latched on to the structure of the world. In this paper I elaborate, elucidate and modify the structural continuity claim and its associated argument. I do so without presupposing a particular conception of structure that favours this or that kind of structural realism. Instead I focus on how structural realists can best account for the neutrally formulated historical facts. The result, I hope, crystallises some of the shared commitments, desiderata and limits of structural realists

Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask Content Type Journal Article Pages 227-276 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0025-7 Authors Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE UK Ioannis Votsis, Philosophisches Institut, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Geb. 23.21/04.86, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 2

This chapter traces the development of structural realism within the scientific realism debate and the wider current of structuralism that has swept the philosophy of the natural sciences in the twentieth century.1 The primary aim is to make perspicuous the many manifestations of structural realism and their underlying claims. Among other things, I will compare structural realism’s various manifestations in order to throw more light onto the relations between them. At the end of the chapter, I will identify the main objections raised against the epistemic form of structural realism. This last task will pave the way for the evaluation of the structural realist answer to the main epistemological question, an evaluation that will be central to the rest of this dissertation

This paper counters an objection raised against one of Bertrand Russell’s lesser-known epistemological views, viz. ‘‘structural realism’’ (SR). In short, SR holds that at most we have knowledge of the structure of the external (i.e., physical) world. M. H. A. Newman’s allegedly fatal objection is that SR is either trivial or false. I argue that the accusation of triviality is itself empty since it fails to establish that SR knowledge claims are uninformative. Moreover, appealing to Quine’s notion of ontological relativity, I suggest that far from being false, SR knowledge claims seem to be the most that we can hope for.

My main aim in this paper is to clarify the concepts of referential success and of referential continuity that are so crucial to the scientific realism debate. I start by considering the three dominant theories of reference and the intuitions that motivate each of them. Since several intuitions cited in support of one theory conflict with intuitions cited in support of another something has to give way. The traditional policy has been to reject all intuitions that clash with a chosen theory. A more radical policy, tied to some experimental philosophers, has called for the rejection of any evidential role for intuitions. I explore a largely ignored third alternative, i.e. saving intuitions (and their evidential role) even when they are at odds. To accommodate conflicting intuitions different sets of internally consistent (yet externally inconsistent) intuitions are taken to lend credence to different concepts of reference. In the current context, this means that the concepts of referential success and referential continuity are not monolithic. They are what I call 'polylithic'. This paper is as much about meta-philosophical concerns with the role of intuitions as it is about reference and the scientific realism debate. Regarding the former I hope that a blueprint will emerge for similar projects in other philosophical domains. Regarding the latter, I hope that polylithicity helps disentangle claims about referential success and continuity in the scientific realism debate by making perspicuous which concepts are best equipped to evaluate the realist's epistemic claims against the historical record of science

In a recent paper James Bogen and James Woodward denounce a set of views on confirmation that they collectively brand 'IRS'. The supporters of these views cast confirmation in terms of Inferential Relations between observational and theoretical Sentences. Against 1RS accounts of confirmation, Bogen and Woodward unveil two main objections: (a) inferential relations are not necessary to model confirmation relations since many data are neither in sentential form nor can they be put in such a form and (b) inferential relations are not sufficient to model confirmation relations because the former cannot capture evidentially relevant factors about the detection processes and instruments that generate the data. In this paper I have a two-fold aim: (i) to show that Bogen and Woodward fail to provide compelling grounds for the rejection of IRS models and (ii) to highlight some of the models' neglected merits

Structural realism is a rather popular view in philosophy of science. As with many popular views, sprouting is never far behind. No sprout has had as much grip on the view’s image as ontic structural realism. Indeed its supporters have such a stranglehold that ‘structural realism’ has almost become a byword for their views. In this talk, I want to redress this imbalance by returning to structural realism’s humble epistemic beginnings to examine exactly what made the view so attractive in the first place. To this effect, I will reconstruct several arguments – some of which little known – proposed in the early part of the twentieth century in support of the epistemic version of structural realism. Not wanting to dwell too much on the past, I will then switch to more recent arguments both for and against the position. A careful evaluation of these arguments will hopefully provide useful information as to what form, if any, epistemic structural realism must take in order to be a viable alternative to its direct competitors, namely standard scientific realism and constructive empiricism

When it comes to name-calling, structural realists have heard pretty much all of it. Among the many insults, they have been called ‘empiricist anti-realists’ but also ‘traditional scientific realists’. Obviously the collapse accusations that motivate these two insults cannot both be true at the same time. The aim of this paper is to defend the epistemic variety of structural realism against the accusation of collapse to traditional scientific realism. In so doing, I turn the tables on traditional scientific realists by presenting them with a dilemma. They can either opt for a construal of their view that permits epistemic access to non-structural features of unobservables but then face the daunting task of substantiating a claim that seems to have little hope of being true or they can drop the requirement of epistemic access to non-structural features but then face a collapse to epistemic structural realism. There is thus only one well supported way to be a realist. No wonder then that many traditional scientific realists have over the years expressed views that are strikingly similar to epistemic structural realism. It is high time to let these epistemic structural realists out of the closet.

In this dissertation, I examine a view called ‘Epistemic Structural Realism’, which holds that we can, at best, have knowledge of the structure of the physical world. Put crudely, we can know physical objects only to the extent that they are nodes in a structure. In the spirit of Occam’s razor, I argue that, given certain minimal assumptions, epistemic structural realism provides a viable and reasonable scientific realist position that is less vulnerable to anti-realist arguments than any of its rivals.

A stalwart view in the philosophy of science holds that, even when broadly construed so as to include theoretical auxiliaries, theories cannot make direct contact with observations. This view owes much to Bogen and Woodward’s influential distinction between data and phenomena. According to them, data are typically the kind of things that are observable or measurable like "bubble chamber photographs, patterns of discharge in electronic particle detectors and records of reaction times and error rates in various psychological experiments". Phenomena are physical processes that are typically unobservable. Examples of the latter category include "weak neutral currents, the decay of the proton, and chunking and recency effects in human memory". Theories, in Bogen and Woodward’s view, are utilised to systematically explain, infer and predict phenomena, not data. The relationship between theories and data is rather indirect. Data count as evidence for phenomena and the latter in turn count as evidence for theories. This view is becoming increasingly influential, Stathis Psillos and Mauricio Suárez ). In this paper I argue contrary to this view that in various significant and well-known cases theories do make direct contact with the help of suitable auxiliaries

Let us call ‘veridicalism’ the view that perceptual beliefs and observational reports are largely truthful. This paper aims to make a case for veridicalism by, among other things, examining in detail and ultimately deflating in import what many consider to be the view’s greatest threat, the so-called ‘theory-ladenness’ of perception and/or observation. In what follows, it is argued that to the extent that theoretical factors influence the formation of perceptual beliefs and observational reports, as theory-ladenness demands, that influence is typically not detrimental to their veridicality or at least not irreversibly so. Central to the defence of veridicalism are two principles: that of internal similarities and that of internal dissimilarities

The pessimistic induction argument, most often associated with Larry Laudan, is now widely considered to be one of the main obstacles for realism. Put simply, the argument holds that since past predictively successful scientific theories have eventually been discarded, we have inductive evidence that our current theories will also be discarded one day. More precisely, Laudan undermines the inference from the explanatory and predictive success of a theory to its approximate truth and referential success. This paper criticises a particular kind of realist reply to Laudan.

Structural realism is arguably one of the most influential movements to have emerged in philosophy of science in the last decade or so. Advocates of this movement attempt to answer epistemological and/or ontological questions concerning science by arguing that the key to all such questions is the mathematical formalism of a theory. This is so, according to structural realists, because the mathematical formalism encodes all and only what is important about a theory’s target domain, namely its structure. Almost without exception, discussions of structural realism centre on the natural sciences and in particular on modern physics. Given that a number of other sciences are less – indeed in some cases much less – mathematised than modern physics, does structural realism have anything informative to say about them? In this talk, I take up the task of articulating what structural realists ought to say about the social sciences if they are to consider themselves as offering a coherent philosophy for the whole of science

Kyle Stanford (2006) argues that the most serious and powerful challenge to scientific realism has been neglected. The problem of unconceived alternatives (PUA), as he calls it, holds that throughout history scientists have failed to conceive alternative theories roughly equally wellconfirmed (by the available evidence) to the theories of the day and, crucially, that such alternatives eventually were conceived and adopted by some section of the scientific community. PUA is a version of the argument from the underdetermination of theories by evidence (UTE) but departs from it in two significant ways: (i) there is a shift from artificially produced rival theories - of the kind typically talked about in the underdetermination debate - to actual rivals and (ii) there is a shift from empirically equivalent rivals to rivals that are equally well-confirmed by the available evidence at a given point in time. In this talk I will argue that by these shifts Stanford successfully manages to find more historical evidence for PUA (than do proponents of UTE), but only at the expense of making his thesis ineffectual.

In recent years, two challenges stand out against scientific realism: the argument from the underdetermination of theories by evidence (UTE) and the pessimistic induction argument (PI). In his book, Kyle Stanford accepts the gravity of these challenges, but argues that the most serious and powerful challenge to scientific realism has been neglected. The problem of unconceived alternatives (PUA), as he calls it, is introduced in chapter one and refined in chapter two. In short, PUA holds that throughout history scientists have failed to conceive alternative theories roughly equally well-confirmed to the theories of the day by the available evidence and, crucially, that such alternatives eventually were conceived and adopted by some section of the scientific community. PUA is a version of UTE, but, unlike its kin, enjoys substantial historical support. It leads to a sort of pessimistic induction that Stanford brands ‘the new induction’ (NI), according to which we should be doubtful about the truth claims of current theories since the historical record suggests that unconceived alternatives are typically lurking in the shadows. His proposal contains two important shifts of focus: First, there is a shift from artificially produced rival theories - of the kind typically talked about in the underdetermination debate - to actual rivals. Second, instead of focusing on empirically equivalent rivals, he urges a shift to rivals that are more or less equally well-confirmed to existing theories by the available evidence at a given point in time. Prima facie, PUA sounds like a welcome addition to the anti-realist arsenal, drawing on historical evidence to support the induction that current theories probably face genuine alternatives waiting to be conceived.

There is a strong tendency in science to opt for simpler and more unified hypotheses. A view that has often been voiced is that such qualities, though aesthetically pleasing or beautiful, are at best pragmatic considerations in matters of choosing between rival hypotheses. This essay offers a novel conception and an associated measure of unification, both of which are manifestly more than just pragmatic considerations. The discussion commences with a brief survey of some failed attempts to conceptualise unification. It then proceeds to an analysis of the notions of confirmational connectedness and disconnectedness, as these are essential ingredients in the proposed conception of unification and its associated measure. Roughly speaking, the notions attempt to capture the way support flows or fails to flow between the content parts of a hypothesis. Equally roughly, the more the content of a hypothesis is confirmationally connected, i.e. support flows between its content parts, the more that content is unified. Since the confirmational connectedness of two content parts is determined by purely objective matters of fact, the proposed notion and measure of unification are themselves strictly objective, i.e. not merely pragmatic. The essay concludes with a discussion of how the proposed measure handles several examples but also how it relates to the debate over measures of coherence.En la ciencia hay una marcada tendencia a preferir las hipotesis mas simples y unificadas. Una opinion mantenida a menudo es que tales cualidades, aun siendo atractivas o esteticamente satisfactorias, constituyen consideraciones pragmaticas, a lo sumo, en el asunto de la eleccion entre teorias rivales. Este ensayo ofrece una concepcion novedosa de unificacion y una medida asociada a ella, ambas claramente algo mas que meras consideraciones pragmaticas. La discusion comienza con un breve repaso de algunos intentos fallidos de conceptualizar la unificacion. Despues se analizan las nociones de conexion y desconexion confirmacional, componentes esenciales en la nocion de unificacion y la medida asociada que aqui se proponen. Dicho brevemente, esas nociones pretenden captar el modo en que el apoyo discurre o no entre las partes del contenido de las hipotesis. Simplificando, cuanto mas conectado confirmacionalmente esta el contenido de una hipotesis, mas unificado esta. Dado que la conectividad confirmacional de dos partes del contenido esta determinada por cuestiones de hecho objetivas, la nocion y la medida que propongo son tambien estrictamente objetivas, esto es, su valor no es meramente pragmatico. El ensayo concluye con una discusion sobre como la medida propuesta afronta diversos ejemplos y sobre su relacion con el debate sobre las diferentes medidas de coherencia.

This chapter traces the development of structural realism within the scientific realism debate and the wider current of structuralism that has swept the philosophy of the natural sciences in the twentieth century.1 The primary aim is to make perspicuous the many manifestations of structural realism and their underlying claims. Among other things, I will compare structural realism’s various manifestations in order to throw more light onto the relations between them. At the end of the chapter, I will identify the main objections raised against the epistemic form of structural realism. This last task will pave the way for the evaluation of the structural realist answer to the main epistemological question, an evaluation that will be central to the rest of this dissertation.

A question in the philosophy of science that has engrossed the minds of many eminent thinkers is the epistemological one of what kind of knowledge, if any, science reveals of the physical world. Answers to this question are typically classified as either realist or anti-realist.1 Structural Realism, as part of its name suggests, is a position on the realist side of the divide. In very simple terms, its advocates hold that our epistemic access to the world, so far as its non-observable part is concerned, is restricted to its structural features. The position can be traced back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century and has recently been attracting renewed interest

Empiricism has been a pivotal philosophical topic for more than two millennia. Several Sophists, Aristotle, the Epicureans, Sextus Empiricus, Francis Bacon, Locke, Hume, Mill, Mach and the Logical Empiricists represent a long line of historically influential empiricists who share a prioritising of the sensory over all other forms of knowledge. The latest influential incarnation, Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, takes science to aim at empirically adequate theories, i.e. theories that save all and only the observable phenomena. Roughly put, an object or phenomenon is observable in van Fraassen’s view if a properly functioning member of the human epistemic community can detect it via their unaided senses. Scientific realists and other critics have contested this notion citing among other reasons that most knowledge in natural science concerns objects that can only be detected with instruments, i.e. those that are unobservable and hence unknowable by van Fraassen’s lights. Beg-the-question accusations fly back and forth. As a consequence a stalemate has ensued in the scientific realism debate

Scientific realists endeavour to secure inferences from empirical success to approximate truth by arguing that despite the demise of empirically successful theories the parts of those theories responsible for their success do in fact survive theory change. If, as some anti-realists have recently suggested, those parts of theories that are responsible for their success are only identifiable in retrospect, namely as those that have survived, then the realist approach is trivialised for now success and survival are guaranteed to coincide. The aim of this paper is to counter this argument by identifying successful theory parts independently from their survival

Structural realism has various diverse manifestations. One of the things that structural realists of all stripes have in common is their endorsement of what I call 'the structural continuity claim'. Roughly, this is the idea that the structure of successful scientific theories survives theory change because it has latched on to the structure of the world. In this talk I elaborate, elucidate and modify the structural continuity claim and its associated argument. I do so without presupposing a particular conception of structure that favours this or that kind of structural realism but instead by concentrating on neutrally formulated historical facts. The result, I hope, throws light on what a structural realist must do to evidentially benefit from the historical record of science. The implicit argument underwriting the structural continuity claim can be reconstructed as follows: Premise (1) Only structural elements of predictively and explanatorily successful scientific theories have been (and will be) preserved through theory change. Premise (2): Preservation of an element implies or at least is good evidence for its (approximate) truth. Premise (3): Non-preservation of an element implies or at least is good evidence for its falsity. Conclusion: It is probably the case that only structural elements are (approximately) true. In this summary I restrict my comments to the first premise. Several points can be raised with respect to it. First, not all structures are created equal. Some play no active role in the predictive and explanatory success of a theory because they do not correspond to any structure in the world. Their non-preservation would therefore not encumber the structural realist. Traditional scientific realists have long employed a distinction between essential and idle posits to weed out those elements of theories that played no substantial role in their predictive and explanatory success..

The aim of this paper is to put in place some cornerstones in the foundations for an objective theory of confirmation by considering lessons from the failures of predictivism. Discussion begins with a widely accepted challenge, to find out what is needed in addition to the right kind of inferential–semantical relations between hypothesis and evidence to have a complete account of confirmation, one that gives a definitive answer to the question whether hypotheses branded as “post hoc monsters” can be confirmed. The predictivist view is then presented as a way to meet this challenge. Particular attention is paid to Worrall’s version of predictivism, as it appears to be the most sophisticated of the lot. It is argued that, despite its faults, his view turns our heads in the right direction by attempting to remove contingent considerations from confirmational matters. The demand to remove such considerations becomes the first of four cornerstones. Each cornerstone is put in place with the aim to steer clear of the sort of failures that plague various kinds of predictivism. In the process, it becomes obvious that the original challenge is wrongheaded and in need of revision. The paper ends with just such a revision

Under what circumstances, if any, are we warranted to assert that a theory is true or at least approximately true? Scientific realists answer that such assertions are warranted only for those theories that enjoy explanatory and predictive success. A number of challenges to this answer have emerged, chief among them the argument from pessimistic meta-induction. According to this challenge, the history of science supplies ample evidence against realism in the form of successful theories that are now considered false. The main realist reaction to this challenge questions the legitimacy of the pessimistic meta-inductivist inference. Advocates of this approach argue that upon closer scrutiny the historical record can be reconciled with scientific realism. When a successful theory is abandoned, not all of its components are discarded but only those that are inessential or idle for the theory’s success. Their abandonment is thus inconsequential for the realist. So long as the essential components survive into the new theory there is no cause for alarm. More precisely, an outdated theory T which enjoyed some measure of success must, according to the realist, be: (i) partially true precisely because some of its theoretical claims are..

The epistemic form of structural realism asserts that our knowledge of the world is restricted to its structural features. Several proponents of this view assume that the world possesses non-structural features; features which, according to their view, cannot be known. In other words, they assume that there is, or, there ought to be (on the basis of normative arguments in epistemology), always a gap between our epistemological and ontological commitments. The ontic form of structural realism denies that this is, or ought to be, the case. Proponents of this view argue that the perfect alignment of epistemological and ontological commitments is a highly desirable metatheoretical feature. They argue this on the basis of the prima facie sensible principle that our ontological commitments ought never to overreach our epistemic ones. Naturally the issue of alignment transcends the debate between the epistemic and the ontic structural realists. Is it in principle impossible for there to be circumstances under which we ought to subscribe to the misalignment of epistemological and ontological commitments? What do the different answers to this question entail for ontic structural realism?