A study on the possibility of defending scientific realism by analyzing the robustness of science

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H06240
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Philosophy/Ethics
• Research Institution: Shinshu University
• Principal Investigator: NOUCHI Rei 信州大学, 医学部, 助教(特定雇用) (60757780)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-08-28 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 科学的実在論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, I examined prior research and investigated actual situation of scientific research. Then, I modeled and verified scientific activity and its knowledge production process, and applied it to the discussion to defend scientific realism (especially semi-realism of Chakravartty). Based on concrete examples, the following conclusions were obtained. 1) Robustness can be one criterion for scientists to judge the reality of research objects. 2) However, it is difficult to defend scientific realism based solely on robustness. In particular, it turned out that it is difficult to defend the no-miracle argument, which is an important argument supporting scientific realism, by the robustness model.

Free Research Field

科学哲学