Common-Sense Realism and the Unimaginable Otherness of Science

Monton, Bradley (2007) Common-Sense Realism and the Unimaginable Otherness of Science.

Abstract

Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism – the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do exist – and constructive empiricism – the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science.