Two conceptions of the contemporary philosophy of science are taken under consideration: scientific realism and constructive empiricism. Scientific realism presupposes 1) the conception of truth as the correspondence of knowledge to reality, 2) the real existence of entities postulated by a theory. The constructive empiricism puts forward the idea of empirical adequacy: science aims to give us the theories which are empirically adequate and acceptance of the theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate. To compare methodological resources of these two positions in the philosophy of science the problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics is involved. As a methodological realization of scientific realism the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics is taken under consideration. K.Popper’s version
Two conceptions of the contemporary philosophy of science are taken under consideration: scientific realism and constructive empiricism. Scientific realism presupposes 1) the conception of truth as the correspondence of knowledge to reality, 2) the real existence of entities postulated by a theory. The constructive empiricism puts forward the idea of empirical adequacy: science aims to give us the theories which are empirically adequate and acceptance of the theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate. To compare methodological resources of these two positions in the philosophy of science the problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics is involved. As a methodological realization of scientific realism the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics is taken under consideration. K.Popper’s version
Evandro Agazzi has shown the possibility of a reconciliation between logical empiricism and realism through the proposal of his conception of scientific objectivity, which replaces the notion of entity with that of object, conceived as a structured set of properties. This conception, on the one hand, has been developed from a more empiricist perspective, according to which the reality of the object is shifted to one of its predictable properties, and on the other hand, has produced his fruitful criticism of the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics and his demand for a realist interpretation based on the introduction of new non-classical concepts.
Scientific realism holds that the objects of scientific knowledge exist independently of the minds or activities of scientists and those scientific theories are true of that objective world. This is antithetical to the posits of quantum physics, a body of knowledge taken as the seal of the sciences because of its incredible feat, which emphasizes observer created reality, and to that end subjective and probabilistic understanding of realities. Given this background, we contend that, if the thesis of scientific realism were to be taken as sacrosanct, nature would have remained somewhat unfavourable since nobody would have dared to ‘create’ reality other than those originally imposed by nature. And to the quantum physicist, the resort to probabilistic conception of reality is an obvious indication that nature in its dynamism is uncanny and still has billions of tricks for mankind.
According to scientific realism, science gives us an approximately true description of what the world is like. But what does it mean? In this chapter, we focus on the ontological and metaphysical aspects of this discussion. That is, we are concerned with the following questions: what there is, according to our best scientific theories? And how are these things that theories say exist? We start from the assumption that a genuine scientific realism must deal with these issues. Taking non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a case study, we discuss some of the challenges currently faced by a genuinely realistic stance. We argue, first, that in the ontological aspect, realists are in the same boat as science, that is, without sufficient epistemic justification to adopt the belief in the entities postulated by a single quantum theory, given that experience (currently) is not able to decide between rival theories; in the metaphysical aspect, realists also encounter problems with theory choice, given the possibility of associating more than one metaphysical theory with the description of the entities postulated by each quantum theory. The same goes for structuralist alternatives, since, even if we accept that scientific theories are committed to the existence of structures, but not objects, we still do not know what structures are, metaphysically. Finally, we move forward in the discussion with the meta-Popperian method, which serves to reduce the metaphysical alternatives associated with the ontological postulates of scientific theories. We may not know what the correct alternative is, but we have been able to progressively check which metaphysical alternatives are incompatible with each scientific theory.
Scientific realism does not view theoretical terms as mere instruments of experimental predictions; it grants referential status to natural kind terms with 'epistemic access' and view scientific theories and terms as corresponding to physical phenomena and entities which exist independently of observation, and as thereby being the source of objective -approximate and not absolute- knowledge of the physical realm. As a result, scientific realism is accused of ontologising the unobservables. Against this charge, scientific realism posits the idea of the dialectical relation between theoretical terms referring to the unobservables and scientific methods. The second argument made by realism is the ‘no miracle’ thesis. These arguments stand challenged by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The aim of the paper is to examine the relevance of the two arguments of scientific realism in countering the idea that the existence of quantum states in the microphysical world renders realism obsolete.
The interpretation of quantum mechanics remains one of the most challenging problems in the philosophy of science, particularly regarding the relationship between scientific theories and reality. In this section we compare two significant conceptual frameworks that address these challenges: RWR interpretation and the Bild conception of scientific theory structuring. Both approaches offer sophisticated alternatives to traditional realist interpretations while maintaining scientific rigor and explanatory power.
Structural realism attempts to make a compromise between scientific realism and empiricism, by restricting our realist commitment to the relational structure of scientific theories. There are two main versions of the position: ontic, or epistemic. According to ontic structural realism, the nomological relations expressed by theories are the primitive entities of reality. This ontic version is motivated in particular by arguments to the effect that epistemic versions are not really distinct from mere empiricism. However according to some authors, it’s not clear that ontic structural realism can differentiate between physical and mathematical relations, and account for the relations between scientific theories and their experimental basis. These difficulties can be related to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, which also concerns the link between theoretical models and experiments. It appears that epistemic structural realism is in a better position to respond to these difficulties. A compromise between both versions of structural realism could allow us to keep the advantages of both.