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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

234307

Naturalistic quietism or scientific realism?

Johanna Wolff

pp. 485-498

Abstract

Realists about science tend to hold that our scientific theories aim for the truth, that our successful theories are at least partly true, and that the entities referred to by the theoretical terms of these theories exist. Antirealists about science deny one or more of these claims. A sizable minority of philosophers of science prefers not to take sides: they believe the realism debate to be fundamentally mistaken and seek to abstain from it altogether. In analogy with other realism debates I will call these philosophers quietists. In the philosophy of science quietism often takes a somewhat peculiar form, which I will call naturalistic quietism. In this paper I will characterize Maddy’s Second Philosophy as a form of naturalistic quietism, and show what the costs for making it feasible are.

Publication details

Published in:

Rowbottom Darrell P., Asay Jamin (2019) Scientific realism. Synthese 196 (2).

Pages: 485-498

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0873-3

Full citation:

Wolff Johanna (2019) „Naturalistic quietism or scientific realism?“. Synthese 196 (2), 485–498.