“Arguments on scientific realism” is Bas van Fraassen's attack on the positive construction of science. He begins by defining scientific realism as the goal of science to provide a “literally true story of how the world is”; and “acceptance of a scientific theory” requires “belief that it is true.” This definition contains two important attributes. The first attribute describes scientific realism as practical. The aim of science is to reach an exact truth about the world. The second attribute is that scientific realism is epistemic. To accept a theory you must believe that it is true. Van Fraassen recognizes that a “literally true relation” divides antirealists into two camps. The first group believes that the purpose of science is to provide adequate descriptions of what the world is like. On the other hand, the second camp believes that an adequate description of the world must be given, but acceptance of the corresponding theories as true is not necessary. Following the principles of the second camp, van Fraassen offers his alternative to scientific realism. His position is known as constructive empiricism. According to van Fraassen, “science aims to give us theories that are empirically adequate; and accepting a theory involves believing only that it is true.” The quote means that a theory must fit an observable, empirical world and its descriptions of the world must be true. Furthermore, the theory must also save all the phenomena linked to it and not just the observable ones. Van Fraassen also states that acceptance of the theory involves more than simple faith. It requires certain commitments that reveal a pragmatic aspect in the acceptance of a theory. Next, Van Fraassen criticizes the arguments for… halfway through the paper… full and challenging views on scientific realism. Each perspective explains science in its own unique way. As a result, I wanted to know how entity realism defines success in science. According to Steven French, the success of entity realism depends on more than just the “presumed truth of theories.” The entity realist defines success as the ability to “intervene in the world.” This intervention allows us to create new technologies and observe new phenomena. Our new technologies allow us to believe in unobservable entities such as electrons. I found this important because it is essentially a description of the scientist's daily task. Their job is to identify phenomena, research them, and provide an explanation for why they occur. Scientists spend their entire careers taking action in the hope of better understanding the world.
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