Summary
Giere is led eventually to the conclusion: "For a perspectival realist, the strongest claims a scientist can legitimately make are of a qualified, conditional form, that is, 'according to this highly confirmed theory (or reliable instrument) the world seems such and such.'" Giere is content to leave it at that: "There is no way legitimately to take the further objectivist step and declare unconditionally, 'this theory (or instrument) provides us with a complete and literally correct picture of the world itself.'" The main thrust of the arguments presented in this book is to show that the practice of science supports the perspectival rather than an objectivist understanding of scientific realism. In support of his view, reflecting on the actual practice of science itself, Giere devotes chapters to a discussion of color vision, to the involvement of instrumentation in virtually all scientific observation, and to the use of physical and abstract models in scientific theorizing.
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Extract
Scientific Perspectivism
GIERE, Ronald N. Scientific Perspectivism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. ix+ 151 pp. Cloth, $30.00-Ronald N. Giere is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Minnesota, a...
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