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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

178864

Scientific realism in the post-kuhnian times

Tian Yu Cao

pp. 101-123

Abstract

Motivated by the developments in contemporary mathematical physics and the related interpretive and historiographical works on these developments, a structuralist and historically constitutive and constructive approach to scientific realism (SHASR) is proposed to address the challenges Thomas Kuhn raised against scientific realism, and to remove the defects of the currently available dissatisfactory responses the structuralists put forward to the challenges. The paper shows that SHASR productively exploits the insights from both Kuhn's historicism and his critics' structuralism, while avoids the traps in both traditions. Then, after a brief comparison between SHASR and the increasingly popular neo-Kantian post-Kuhnian philosophy of science recommended and defended by Michael Freedman and some others, it concludes with a big picture about the science-world relationship derived from the notion of emergence conceptualized within the framework of SHASR, whose bearings on the Kantian question of the phenomenal - noumenal relationship are worth further explorations.

Publication details

Published in:

Wuppuluri Shyam, Doria Francisco Antonio (2018) The map and the territory: exploring the foundations of science, thought and reality. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 101-123

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-72478-2_6

Full citation:

Yu Cao Tian (2018) „Scientific realism in the post-kuhnian times“, In: S. Wuppuluri & F.A. Doria (eds.), The map and the territory, Dordrecht, Springer, 101–123.