Kosmas Brousalis

This chapter examines the philosophical trajectory of Ramsey sentences from Frank Ramsey’s original discussion in “Theories” to their later deployment by Rudolf Carnap, David Lewis, and contemporary structural realists. It argues that Ramsey sentences have frequently been appropriated in support of broadly antirealist approaches in the philosophy of science—approaches that either deny or paraphrase theoretical commitments to unobservable entities—even though they cannot ultimately sustain such interpretations. We reconstruct Ramsey’s introduction of his existentialized account of theories against the background of the positivist project of eliminating theoretical terms and emphasize the pragmatist motivations underlying his rejection of explicit definitions. We then examine Carnap’s re-invention of Ramsey sentences as part of his attempt to secure a compatibilist position between realism and instrumentalism and argue that Carnap’ strategy ultimately fails. Finally, we discuss later Ramseyan approaches, focusing on structural realism and Lewis’s “Ramseyan Humility,” and contend that they face serious difficulties, at least when intended as moderate realist positions.

The Scientific Realism Debate (SRD) has been accused of going around in circles without reaching a consensus, so that several scholars have advocated its dissolution in favor of reformed projects that are eliminativist towards the distinctively philosophical aims and methods. In this paper, after outlining the project that SRD-participants have been involved in for some time now—which we call the Received View—we discuss two dissolution-proposals: sociological externalism and localism. We argue that these projects are incomplete and that, even when judged in themselves, they cannot flourish without the ‘traditional’ philosophical reflection they wish to get rid of. However, although not substitutes for the Received View, those projects have some insightful features. These are assigned their proper place in the dialectics of SRD, which is shown to be an instance of the method of reflective equilibrium (MRE). Lastly—based on Michael DePaul’s work—we provide a response to the well-known concern that MRE is epistemically circular, by claiming that MRE is the only rational method of inquiry. Overall, our goal is ‘therapeutic’: we try to mitigate the anxiety caused by simultaneously believing that SRD is circular and suspecting that there is a good way out of the circle that we just haven’t found yet. For, having dismissed the suspicion that there might be a good trick to dissolve the circle, one may learn to live in it and be more calm in carrying on with what one has.