Abstract
The scientific realism debate is a debate over which virtues are appropriate to the evaluation of scientific theories. The realist takes a virtuous scientific theory to be true, in that the physical world is one of its models. One sort of non-realist takes a virtuous scientific theory to be empirically adequate, in that observable phenomena are isomorphic to an empirical substructure of one of its models.1 Another sort of non-realist takes a virtuous scientific theory to attain an instrumental efficacy in the hands of its practitioners. By a kind of non-axiomatizable craft feeling, physicists extract verifiable predictions from the theory, and behavior conforming to those predictions from their antic laboratory apparatus.2
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Ruetsche, L. (1998). How Close is “Close Enough”?. In: Dieks, D., Vermaas, P.E. (eds) The Modal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 60. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5084-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5084-2_9
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