caa a22 4500 467901716 CHVBK 20180406152820.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e20061201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10699-005-3198-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10699-005-3198-8 Mcarthur Dan School of Arts and Letters Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St, M3J IP3, Toronto, ON, Canada aut The Anti-philosophical Stance, the Realism Question and Scientific Practice [Elektronische Daten] [Dan Mcarthur] In recent years a general consensus has been developing in the philosophy of science to the effect that strong social constructivist accounts are unable to adequately account for scientific practice. Recently, however, a number of commentators have formulated an attenuated version of constructivism that purports to avoid the difficulties that plague the stronger claims of its predecessors. Interestingly this attenuated form of constructivism finds philosophical support from a relatively recent turn in the literature concerning scientific realism. Arthur Fine and a number of other commentators have argued that the realism debate ought to be abandoned. The rationale for this argument is that the debate is sterile for it has, it is claimed, no consequence for actual scientific practice, and therefore does not advance our understanding of science or its practice. Recent "softer” accounts of social constructivism also hold a similar agnostic stance to the realism question. I provide a survey of these various agnostic stances and show how they form a general position that I shall refer to as "the anti-philosophical stance”. I then demonstrate that the anti-philosophical stance fails by identifying difficulties that attend its proposal to ban philosophical interpretation. I also provide examples of instances where philosophical stances to the realism question affect scientific practice. Springer, 2006 Foundations of Science Kluwer Academic Publishers 11/4(2006-12-01), 369-397 1233-1821 11:4<369 2006 11 10699 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-005-3198-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-005-3198-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Mcarthur Dan School of Arts and Letters Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St, M3J IP3, Toronto, ON, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Foundations of Science Kluwer Academic Publishers 11/4(2006-12-01), 369-397 1233-1821 11:4<369 2006 11 10699 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer