Frost-Arnold, Greg (2013) Can the Pessimistic Induction Be Saved from Semantic Anti-Realism about Scientific Theory? [Preprint]

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Abstract

Scientific anti-realists who appeal to the pessimistic induction (PI) claim that the theoretical terms of past scientific theories often fail to refer to anything. But on standard views in philosophy of language, such reference failures prima facie lead to certain sentences being neither true nor false. Thus, if these standard views are correct, then the conclusion of the PI should be that significant chunks of current theories are truth-valueless. But that is semantic anti-realism about scientific discourse—a position most philosophers of science, anti-realists included, consider anathema today. Therefore, proponents of the PI confront a dilemma: either accept semantic anti-realism or reject common semantic views. I examine strategies (with particular emphasis on supervaluations) for the PI proponent to either lessen the sting of this argument, or learn to live with it.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Frost-Arnold, Greg gfrost-arnold@hws.edu
Additional Information:	This is a pre-print of a paper forthcoming in BJPS.
Keywords:	pessimistic induction, realism, anti-realism, supervaluations
Subjects:	General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User:	Greg Frost-Arnold
Date Deposited:	22 May 2013 13:04
Last Modified:	22 May 2013 13:04
Item ID:	9778
Subjects:	General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date:	2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9778

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