Evaluation of the Argument of "Unconceived Alternatives" from the Perspective of Bhaskar's Critical Realism

Abstract

Scientific realism has always faced continuous criticisms from scientific anti-realists. Kyle Stanford's "unconceived alternatives" argument can be seen as a late and troublesome version of these challenges. In this paper, we will first briefly mention scientific realism and its supporting arguments, including the "no-miracle" argument and the "slippery slope" argument. Then we will list the main challenges that scientific realism has faced. Arguments such as "pessimistic meta-induction" and "underdetermination of scientific theories" are raised against scientific realism. In the following, we will take a look at Stanford's argument and examine how it creates a challenge for realism by combining historical and philosophical arguments, and we will also describe the realist answers raised to the said challenge. We will also try to explain from Roy Bhaskar's critical realism point of view how the Stratified view of the world and scientific theories, makes it possible to achieve knowledge of reality through scientific activity and also can weaken the basis of Stanford's anti-realist argument.

Keywords

• unconceived alternatives
• kyle stanford
• underdetermination
• pessimistic meta-induction
• roy bhaskar