Induction, Rationality, and the Realism/Anti-realism Debate: A Reply to Shech

ABSTRACT

Shech (2022) offers a critical assessment of my defense of anti-realism, developed in Resisting Scientific Realism. Induction and inductive inferences play a central role in Shech’s critical analysis of my defense of realism. I argue that Shech’s criticisms that relate to induction and inductive inference are problematic, and do not constitute a threat to my defense of anti-realism. Contrary to what Shech claims, the anti-realist does not need to explain why inductive inferences are successful. That is not part of contemporary realism/anti-realism debate. Further, such a demand fails to recognise that some anti-realists do not put much stock in induction.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-realism
• inductive inferences
• scientific rationality
• Darwinian/selectionist explanation
• the success of science

This article refers to:

Darwinian-Selectionist Explanation, Radical Theory Change, and the Observable-Unobservable Dichotomy

Acknowledgements

I thank Lori Nash, Sam Schindler, and John Preston for critical feedback on an earlier draft. I also thank the editor for ISPS for constructive feedback on the paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Not all contemporary anti-realists accept this conception of scientific rationality. But it is a perfectly plausible theory, and it is intimately connected with van Fraassen’s anti-realism.

2 I have framed this discussion in terms of belief, but as readers know, van Fraassen thinks that it is enough for scientists to accept a theory, where acceptance is a commitment weaker than belief (see Van Fraassen 1980, 12).

3 To be clear, it is when we treat ampliative rules of inference as binding that they lead to incoherence. But they can only function as canons of rationality if they are regarded as wholly binding.