Scientific realism debate in the philosophy of science

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Felsefe Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: HÜSNÜ ÖZER

Danışman: SAMET BAĞÇE

Özet:

The primary concern of this piece of work is to reconsider scientific realism debate in the philosophy of science. Accordingly, the overall aim is to come up with the clues of a viable scientific realist attitude in the face of anti-realist interpretations of scientific theories. To accomplish this aim, I make use of two modified versions of scientific realism, that is, ‘epistemic structural realism’ and ‘entity realism’. Epistemic structural realism is a realist position of which proponents claim that the only knowable part of the reality is the structure of it which is expressed by the mathematical equations of our best scientific theories. On the other hand, according to entity realism, the only assured knowledge obtained from scientific theories is the existence of theoretical entities posited by these theories. I argue that a combination of the properly construed versions of these two positions might fulfill the afore-mentioned aim of this thesis.