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In Defense of Convergent Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Clyde L. Hardin  and
Alexander Rosenberg
Clyde L. Hardin
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Syracuse University
Alexander Rosenberg
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Syracuse University
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Abstract

Many realists have maintained that the success of scientific theories can be explained only if they may be regarded as approximately true. Laurens Laudan has in turn contended that a necessary condition for a theory's being approximately true is that its central terms refer, and since many successful theories of the past have employed central terms which we now understand to be non-referential, realism cannot explain their success. The present paper argues that a realist can adopt a view of reference according to which a theory might plausibly be said to be approximately true even though its central terms do not refer, or alternatively, he may construe reference in such a way as to assign reference to a range of successful older theories which includes Laudan's purported counterexamples.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 1982 , pp. 604 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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Footnotes

†

Part of this research was supported by grants to Rosenberg by the American Council of Learned Societies and the John Solomon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

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