Sharif Digital Repository

Past theory-changes in science were sometimes accompanied by radical conceptual shifts. This has urged some philosophers of science to project the same possibility onto current theories and suspend belief in the conceptual parts of our current best scientific theories. This type of argument is called the “pessimistic induction” (PI) and is often used by scientific anti-realists. Scientific realists, on the other hand, have argued against PI, by insisting that past theory-changes were not as radical as anti-realists suggest, as well as by appealing to the differences between current and past science. In recent decades, anti-realists, such as Kyle Stanford and Brad Wray, have renewed the...