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Pluralist Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds?

Glick, David (2019) Pluralist Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds? [Preprint]

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Abstract

John Worrall (1989) famously claimed that structural realism is the best of both worlds; it enables one to endorse the best arguments for scientific realism and antirealism. In this paper, I argue that structural realism also enables one to combine two other seemingly inconsistent positions: realism and pluralism. Indeed, the very features which form the basis of the structural realist’s reply to the problem of theory change may be applied synchronically to allow for a pluralist structural realism. The resulting position incorporates a robust variety of scientific pluralism unavailable to the traditional realist and thereby allows the structural realist to take seriously the pluralism apparent in scientific practice.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Glick, Daviddavid.glick@sydney.edu.au0000-0001-7811-5658
Keywords: structural realism, scientific pluralism, scientific realism
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User: David Glick
Date Deposited: 24 Jul 2019 02:36
Last Modified: 24 Jul 2019 02:36
Item ID: 16255
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02333-3
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1007/s11229-019-02333-3
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date: 2019
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16255

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