Entity Realism

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Entity Realism

The truth about scientific unobservables has been argued about from two distinct sides, realists and anti-realists. I will argue that entity realism is the best way to show that entities exist. The scientific anti-realist believes that there is a difference between unobservable and observable entities. They believe that because there is no concrete evidence of unobservable entities and events, theories should not be taken to be true. This does not mean that anti-realists do not take all scientific theories to be false, but that they should only be considered empirically adequate. A theory is believed to be empirically adequate when observable entities and events are found to be true. The scientific realist believes that there is no difference between unobservable and observable; therefore no line should be drawn between the two.

Many people who are not very familiar with science usually take the naïve realist position. This is the position in which they do not attempt to distinguish observable from unobservable. The naïve realist also does not attempt to distinguish observational terms from theoretical terms. Observational terms are terms that explain observable entities and events that occur in scientific experimentation. Some examples of observational terms could be human body parts and an automobile moving. Theoretical terms are terms that can not be directly viewed through the naked eye. Some examples of theoretical terms are force and velocity. Realists believe that theoretical terms are proven to be true by observational terms. The naïve realist is able to justify their position because of the Argument from Success. People are driven towards realism because of the success of science....

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...or a theory to be true there cannot even be the smallest bit of doubt, in the smallest bit of information which is part of the theory. The problem with theories is they attempt to claim too much. There is too much room for error in theories for them to be considered true. I agree with Ian Hacking who is an Entity Realist. Entity realists believe in things, but not theories. The entity realist believes that you should believe in the existence of an entity 'E' referred to by a term 'E' just in case our understanding of 'E' allows to successfully construct instruments that manipulate and use the world in a variety of diverse contexts and structures. Entity realists do not believe that entities are true because there is no clear definition of true. Anti-realists have no argument against entity realists, because entity realism attempts to shoot down theories.

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