Realism Rescued : How Scientific Progress Is Possible

Pbk, viii, 213 pages ; 24 cm. Ink mark on lower edge o/w a clean copy in very good condition. Contents : Ch. 1. The realism debates. 1. Introduction: the weakness of 'modest realism'. 2. What is at issue between realists and anti-realists? 3. An outline of our approach. 4. Why logicism must be abandoned. 5. Salvaging the concepts of truth and verisimilitude for science. 6. An inductive strategy for assessing verisimilitude -- Ch. 2. The language of science. 1. The structure of the argument. 2. How kinds are constituted and a type-terminology acquires its meaning. 3. How types are interrelated in hierarchies. 4. Type-hierarchies and natural kinds. 5. How relations among natural kinds are reflected in the structure of type-hierarchies -- Ch. 3. A naturalistic analysis of the use of models in science. 1. Models and theories. 2. What do scientific discourses describe? 3. The modelling relation analysed as type-identity. 4. The analogy structure of a model. 5. The fine structure of the content of some middle-level theories. 6. The plausibility and implausibility of theories. 7. The sources of explanatory models. 8. Theory-families and their virtual worlds as systems -- Ch. 4. Some proposals for the formal analysis of the use of models in science. 1. A summary of the naturalistic treatment of models in physical science. 2. The use of the concept of 'model' in logic and mathematics. 3. Summary of the argument so far. 4. The 'set-theoretic' or 'non-statement' account of models and theories. 5. Icon and Bild: Hertz's account of mechanics. 6. Summary -- Ch. 5. The type-hierarchy approach to models. 1. The traditional account of models. 2. Problems with the traditional approach to models and analogies. 3. The traditional approach to literal and metaphorical language. 4. Type-hierarchies depict literal and metaphorical language. 5. Contrasting the type-hierarchy approach to models with the comparison view. 6. Analogies reconceived. 7. Conclusion -- Ch. 6. Scientific realism and truth. 1. The traditional picture and its problems. 2. Devitt and the rejection of bivalent realism. 3. Similarity and type-hierarchies. 4. An illustration of the type-hierarchy approach to verisimilitude. 5. Truth and verisimilitude. 6. Conclusion: truth and scientific realism -- Ch. 7. Conditionals and the modalities of scientific discourse. 1. The problem of contrary-to-fact conditionals. 2. The 'possible worlds' approach to the interpretation of the modalities of scientific discourse. 3. The 'consequence' approach and the problem of cotenability. 4. An ontological approach to the interpretation of the content of laws of nature. 5. The consequence approach revised. 6. A recipe or procedure for evaluating counterfactuals. 7. Some comparisons between the approaches. 8. Virtual worlds versus possible worlds. 9. Modal verisimilitude -- Ch. 8. A realist theory of properties. 1. Properties in physics: the primary and secondary quality distinction. 2. The conditionality of properties I: simple dispositions. 3. The conditionality of properties II: complex dispositions. 4. The ontosemantics of three new physical properties. 5. Properties in quantum field theory: type-hierarchies again -- Ch. 9. The intersection of metaphysics and epistemology. 1. The argument that would establish realism. 2. The semantic basis of realism summarised. 3. The principle of epistemic invariance. 4. The induction over particulars. 5. The induction over types. 6. The final step: betting on 'truth'. [Science Methodology - Research Methodology] v45 / m16066.…