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Scientific Realism and the God's Eye Point of View

Sankey, Howard (2003) Scientific Realism and the God's Eye Point of View. [Preprint]

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Abstract

According to scientific realism, the aim of science is to discover the truth about both observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent, objective reality, which we inhabit. It has been objected by Putnam and others that such a metaphysically realist position presupposes a God’s Eye point of view, of which no coherent sense can be made. In this paper, I will argue for two claims. First, scientific realism does not require the adoption of a God’s Eye point of view. Instead, scientific realism is a hypothesis about the relationship between scientific theory and reality which may be proposed from within our human perspective. Second, even if scientific realism did require a God’s Eye point of view, this would not necessarily be to the detriment of realism. For it is possible to develop an intelligible external perspective on human epistemic relations to our environing reality.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Sankey, Howard
Keywords: God's eye point of view, internal realism, Hilary Putnam, scientific realism
Subjects: General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User: Howard Sankey
Date Deposited: 30 Oct 2003
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 15:12
Item ID: 1456
Subjects: General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date: October 2003
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/1456

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