From the caloric theory of heat to Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field: How the history of physics mandates that realists re-think their argument from theoretical success.

摘要

It is argued that abductive arguments from theoretical success count at best against fictionalism, that scientific realists are best distinguished by their belief in the legitimacy of abduction, and that scientific realism is thus best understood as scientific anti-fictionalism. It is argued that some abductions to existential claims which are not theory-mediated have been vindicated by later observations, and that this counts in favour of the legitimacy of abduction. Attention then turns to the issue of abductive standards. It is argued that the histories of the caloric theory of heat, the origins of classical thermodynamics, the kinetic theory of gases, and Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field suggest that if a model both satisfied an observationally adequate set of laws and was in a certain sense consonant with a body of background theory then this was counted in favour of its non-ad hocness, and eventually in favour of its admission as both a received model and one likely to be immune from radical overthrow or revision. It is argued that belief in a model's likely immunity from radical revision is the sort of success that counts for the purposes of any abductive inference, and hence that a model's consonance with background theory has counted for those who believe in abduction in favour of a realist attitude towards it. The appropriate notion of consonance is analyzed, and is termed the "independent warrant" which exists for the relevant model. The claim that independent warrant gave and properly gives grounds for a belief in the non-fictionality of the essential elements of the model to which it accrues is further defended.