BETWEEN REALISM AND ANTIREALISM IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Abstract

Although the contemporary debate between scientific realism and antirealism emerged in the twentieth-century, its root goes back to philosophical questions about the nature of reality and the possibility of human knowledge. These questions were first raised by the Milesians who sought the fundamental constituents of the universe. The concerns were subsequently developed by philosophers such as Plato, Kant, and others, who broadened the inquiry from the search for ultimate substance of reality to questions concerning the nature, limits, and scope of human knowledge. With the rise of modern science and its remarkable success, philosophical attention shifted to the aims of scientific inquiry, the status of scientific theories, and the nature of scientific progress. It is within this context that the debate between scientific realism and scientific antirealism emerged dividing philosophers into two broad schools of thought, namely; scientific realists and scientific antirealists. Scientific realists maintain that the primary aim of science is the discovery of truth and that successful scientific theories are approximately true representations of reality. Scientific antirealists, by contrast, argue that the historical replacement of once-successful scientific theories and the underdetermination of theory by evidence undermines such claims, emphasizing instead the problem-solving features of scientific theories. Using documentary sources and conceptual analysis, this paper critically examines both positions within the framework of the history of science. It argues that while scientific realism provides the most compelling explanation for the success of modern science, it does not fully account for the provisional and historically situated character of scientific knowledge. Conversely, although scientific antirealism rightly emphasizes the fallibility and revisability of scientific theories, it does not adequately explain the enduring success of scientific practice. The paper therefore defends critical realism as a via media that preserves the realist commitment to a mind-independent reality while incorporating the antirealist insight that scientific theories remain revisable and subject to continual empirical and critical evaluation