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SUMMARY:Beyond correspondence: realism for realistic people - Hasok Chang 
 (Department of History and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20190221T153000Z
DTEND:20190221T170000Z
UID:TALK112825@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:In this paper I lay down some groundwork for a pragmatist scie
 ntific realism\, which will be fully consonant with actual scientific prac
 tices. Scientific realism demands that our best scientific theories should
  give really true descriptions of the world. Truth here is usually conceiv
 ed in terms of a 'correspondence' between theory and reality – ultimate\
 , metaphysical\, and mind-independent reality. However\, this idea is usel
 ess in practice because such reality is inaccessible to us\, and the alleg
 ed correspondence only makes sense as a metaphor based on actual represent
 ational activities\, in which both the 'model' and the 'target' are access
 ible. This metaphor appears to make literal sense only because we take par
 t in the illusion of the 'ready-made world'\, according to which reality\,
  independently of any conceptions we impose on it\, already has well-defin
 ed parts and relations between the parts. Abandoning the illusory metaphor
 \, I propose that realists should accept pragmatism in relation to 'primar
 y truth'\, which does not consist in agreement with other things that we a
 lready know to be true. Primary truth is based on the 'operational coheren
 ce' of activities that we engage in\; if some coherent activities rely on 
 a certain proposition\, then that proposition is true within the domain of
  those activities. Once we have some primarily true propositions\, then co
 rrespondence to them defines the secondary truth of other propositions. Ho
 wever\, the picture I propose is not a foundationalist one in the traditio
 nal sense: a given proposition may be true in a primary or a secondary way
 \, or even both. 'Truth happens to an idea' (William James)\, and the mann
 er of that happening depends on the contingent contexts of truth-making an
 d truth-finding activities.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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