The Byzantine Arts and Byzantine Literature

This chapter examines the relationships between literary and visual forms in Byzantium. Both in the Early and in the later Byzantine periods there were clear parallels between the ways that literary and visual compositions were structured, whether through the rhetorical techniques of repetition, variation, and acrostic in Early Byzantine art, or through comparison and antithesis along with the selective realism of ekphrasis and ethopoiia, after Iconoclasm. These parallels involved both fundamental principles of design and organization and more isolated instances of quotation, raising the complex question of whether one medium can be said to have exerted influence on the other, or whether the same forms occurred in literature and the visual arts as parallel expressions of common habits of thought.

Realist Representations of Particles

While much debate about scientific realism concerns the issue of whether it is compatible with theory change over time, and certain forms of selective realism have been suggested with this in mind, this chapter considers a closely related challenge for realism: that of articulating how a theory should be interpreted at any given time. In a crucial respect the challenges posed by diachronic and synchronic interpretation are the same; in both cases, realists face an apparent dilemma. The thinner their interpretations, the easier realism is to defend, but at the cost of more substantial commitment. The more substantial their interpretations, the more difficult they are to defend. The chapter looks at this worry in the context of the Standard Model of particle physics. Examining some selective realist attempts at interpretation, it argues that realism is, in fact, compatible with different commitments on the spectrum of thinner to more substantial, thus mitigating the dilemma.

What Can the Discovery of Boron Tell Us About the Scientific Realism Debate?

This chapter examines the work in chemistry that led to the discovery of boron and explores the implications of this episode for the scientific realism debate. This episode begins with Lavoisier’s oxygen theory of acidity and his prediction that boracic acid contains oxygen and a hypothetical, combustible substance that he called the boracic radical. The episode culminates in the work of Davy, Gay-Lussac, and Thénard, who used potassium to extract oxygen from boracic acid and thereby discovered boron. This chapter shows that Lavoisier’s theory of acidity, which was not even approximately true, exhibited novel predictive success. Selective realists attempt to accommodate such false-but-successful theories by showing that their success is due to the fact that they have approximately true parts. However, this chapter argues that this episode poses a strong challenge to selective realism because the parts of Lavoisier’s theory that are responsible for its success are not even approximately true.

Scientific Realism and Further Underdetermination Challenges

In an earlier article on this journal I argued that the problem of empirical underdetermination can for the largest part be solved by theoretical virtues, and for the remaining part it can be tolerated. Here I confront two further challenges to scientific realism based on underdetermination. First, there are four classes of theories which may seem to be underdetermined even by theoretical virtues. Concerning them I argue that (i) theories produced by trivial permutations and (ii) “equivalent descriptions” are compatible with the truth of standard theories; instead (iii) “as if” versions of standard theories are much worse from the point of view of theoretical virtues; finally (iv) mathematically intertranslatable theories either may become empirically decidable in the future, or can be discriminated by theoretical virtues, or realists may simply plead ignorance about their claims. Secondly, I consider Stanford’s underdetermination with respect unconceived alternatives, arguing that it essentially relies on the pessimistic meta-induction from the falsity of all past theories. Therefore, it can be resisted by (a) considering the radical advancement of present with respect to past science, and (b) arguing with selective realism that past successful theories, even if false, always included some true components.

You are not a selective realist-dialetheist

In her (2019), Martínez-Ordaz puts forward an argument whose conclusion pretends to be a dilemma for selective realists: either selective realists cannot rule true contradictions out or the usual characterization of selective realism is incomplete. Then she argues that one should take the second horn and complete such a characterization with some logical constraints. In this note, I will defend that her argument for the dilemma is flawed at several steps and, moreover, that the dilemma is not dangerous and that her proposed completion of selective realism is not needed.

Perturbing Realism

Effective Realism marshals ideologies and technologies of our best current physics— the interacting quantum field theories making up the Standard Model—to articulate a selective realism resistant to skeptical affronts such as the Pessimistic Metainduction. Chapter 15 attempts an empiricist re-appropriation of the putatively realist commitments Effective Realists stake out. It also argues that resisting empiricist reappropriation entangles selective realists in something alarmingly similar to the very project of ‘Standard Interpretation’ they regard as misguided.

Against ‘functional gravitational energy’: a critical note on functionalism, selective realism, and geometric objects and gravitational energy

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR (who opine that gravitational energy can be said to meaningfully exist in GR) and anti-realists/eliminativists (who deny this). I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted to the adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind.

Are you a selective-realist dialetheist without knowing it?

Recently there has been a tendency on the part of some scientific realists to weaken their philosophical theses with respect to the success of science. Some of them have suggested that a satisfactorily realist standpoint should be a highly modest approach to scientific success , leaving many with the impression that scientific realism nowadays is nothing that we once thought it was. In light of that, the main concern of this paper is methodological, here I want to answer the question how far can we push the boundaries of our realist commitments and still be in control of our philosophical claims. In particular, I deal with the issue of how a certain type of weak version of selective realism will necessarily allow for true contradictions, dialetheias –even if that is not desirable. Here I argue that if one presents a very weak characterization of selective realism, one that is in line with contemporary projects, this type of realism will not forbid the possibility of things such as dialetheias. I also claim that, if that is the case, we face the following dilemma: or our general characterization of selective realism is mistaken or selective realists cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of why and how to forbid dialetheias in science