Rice, Collin (2021) Understanding Realism. Synthese, 198. ISSN 1573-0964

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Abstract

Catherine Elgin has recently argued that a nonfactive conception of understanding is required to accommodate the epistemic successes of science that make essential use of idealizations and models. In this paper, I argue that the fact that our best scientific models and theories are pervasively inaccurate representations can be made compatible with a more nuanced form of scientific realism that I call Understanding Realism. According to this view, science aims at (and often achieves) factive scientific understanding of natural phenomena. I contend that this factive scientific understanding is provided by grasping a set of true modal information about the phenomenon of interest. Furthermore, contrary to Elgin’s view, I argue that the facticity of this kind of scientific understanding can be separated from the inaccuracy of the models and theories used to produce it.

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Item Type:	Published Article or Volume
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Rice, Collin collin.rice@colostate.edu
Keywords:	understanding; realism
Subjects:	General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User:	Collin Rice
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2025 14:42
Last Modified:	22 Aug 2025 14:42
Item ID:	26318
Journal or Publication Title:	Synthese
Publisher:	Springer (Springer Science+Business Media B.V.)
Official URL:	https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-0...
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1007/s11229-019-02331-5
Subjects:	General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date:	2021
Volume:	198
ISSN:	1573-0964
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26318

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