Linked from

The 68 pages that link to Scientific realism, each with the reason it gives.

• Scientific methodRelated: It addresses what scientific success and evidence warrant believing about theories.

• EmpiricismCompared with: Empirical evidence raises the question whether theories justify belief in entities beyond direct observation.

• FalsifiabilityRelated: Whether falsifiability supports realism depends on what successful testing can establish about unobserved entities.

• Social constructionismCompared with: Realism disputes stronger readings that reduce reality to social agreement.

• Logical positivismCompared with: Its commitment to claims about unobservables conflicts with strict verificationist restrictions.

• Karl PopperRelated: Popper’s commitment to objective truth complements, but does not itself establish, scientific realism.

• IdealismCompared with: Its commitment to observer-independent entities challenges idealist accounts of physical reality.

• Philosophical skepticismCompared with: Skepticism about evidence and theory choice pressures claims about what science reveals as real.

• MaterialismRelated: Materialism often draws on science's account of physical entities beyond everyday observation.

• RelativismCompared with: It tests whether scientific knowledge tracks reality beyond the frameworks used to describe it.

• HeliocentrismRelated: Debates over whether Earth truly moves raised questions about models as descriptions or calculation tools.

• Cultural materialismRelated: Cultural materialism’s scientific ambitions depend on whether its explanations can be tested against evidence.

• Philosophy of scienceRelated: It frames disputes over whether theories reveal unobservable entities or merely organize observations.

• Occam's razorCompared with: Whether simplicity tracks truth depends partly on what scientific theories are taken to represent.

• Vienna CircleCompared with: Its claims about theoretical entities challenge strict empiricist limits on meaningful science.

• Scientific theoryRelated: Theories raise the question of whether their unobservable entities should be taken as real.

• Science and Technology StudiesCompared with: Debates with realist accounts have shaped STS arguments about facts and knowledge.

• ComplementarityCompared with: Complementarity challenges simple expectations that every property has one observer-independent classical description.

• InstrumentalismCompared with: It treats theories as descriptions of reality, where instrumentalism emphasizes predictive and organizational success.

• Scientific modelCompared with: Realism asks whether a model’s success supports belief in the entities it represents.

• AbductionRelated: The success of inference to the best explanation is often used to defend realism about unobserved causes.

• Archaeological ethicsCompared with: Scientific claims about the past may conflict with community interpretations and authority.

• Mathematical modelingRelated: It frames the question of whether a model’s structures describe reality or merely organize observations.

• Problem of inductionRelated: Inductive support bears on whether present theories can be trusted beyond observed results.

• Imre LakatosRelated: Lakatos’s account of progress is often read as supporting belief in increasingly successful theories.

• IncommensurabilityCompared with: Realist accounts ask how theories with changing concepts can still concern the same world.

• Mathematical modelRelated: It raises whether a model’s structures represent reality or merely organize successful predictions.

• Scientific explanationRelated: It shapes whether explanatory entities are treated as real or merely useful constructs.

• UnderdeterminationCompared with: Underdetermination challenges whether empirical success warrants belief in one theory's unobservable claims.

• Experimental physicsRelated: Experimental success informs debates about whether theories reveal real underlying structures.

• Processual archaeologyRelated: Debates over archaeological objectivity raised questions about whether past social systems can be known directly.

• Eliminative materialismRelated: The eliminative argument relies on treating mature cognitive science as a guide to what mental processes really are.

• Scientific naturalismRelated: It supplies a common account of what scientific knowledge reveals.

• UniversalsRelated: Realism about universals can explain laws and properties as features science discovers.

• Paradigm shiftCompared with: It raises questions about whether successive paradigms approach truth or change what scientists can describe.

• Post-processual archaeologyCompared with: Its account of objective knowledge differs from post-processual emphasis on situated interpretation.

• Hilary PutnamRelated: Putnam defended scientific realism before revising his account of what realism requires.

• Moritz SchlickCompared with: Schlick’s interpretation of theories raised questions about whether they describe reality or organize experience.

• Pierre DuhemCompared with: Duhem questioned whether physical theory should be read as a literal description of reality.

• Primary and secondary qualitiesRelated: The distinction raises whether science reveals object properties beyond ordinary sensory appearances.

• WorldviewBroader topic: It illustrates a worldview commitment about whether scientific models reveal real entities.

• Duhem–Quine thesisRelated: Holistic testing raises questions about how evidence warrants belief in particular theoretical claims.

• Science warsRelated: It names a central position challenged by constructivist accounts.

• Scientific lawRelated: Whether laws describe real features of nature or summarize observations is a philosophical dispute.

• Thing-in-itselfCompared with: Debates over things in themselves raise questions about what science can claim about mind-independent reality.

• Boltzmann brainRelated: The scenario pressures the link between scientific evidence and a mind-independent cosmic history.

• Paul FeyerabendCompared with: His critique of stable methods challenges some routes by which realism claims scientific progress.

• VerificationismCompared with: Realists defend claims about unobservable entities that strict verification may exclude.

• Critical rationalismRelated: Popper paired fallibilism about knowledge with realism about the world theories seek to describe.

• Ernst CassirerCompared with: Cassirer’s account emphasizes symbolic mediation while still defending the objectivity of scientific knowledge.