Skip to main content
Log in

What is Hacking’s argument for entity realism?

  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to Ian Hacking’s Entity Realism, unobservable entities that scientists carefully manipulate to study other phenomena are real. Although Hacking presents his case in an intuitive, attractive, and persuasive way, his argument remains elusive. I present five possible readings of Hacking’s argument: a no-miracle argument, an indispensability argument, a transcendental argument, a Vichian argument, and a non-argument. I elucidate Hacking’s argument according to each reading, and review their strengths, their weaknesses, and their compatibility with each other.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. ER is associated with other scholars as well (Cartwright 1983; Giere 1988). This paper is devoted solely to Hacking.

  2. My subsequent mentions of truth should be understood as referring to approximate truth as well.

  3. I thank Anjan Chakravartty and an anonymous reviewer for this clarification.

  4. This is not to deny that an IBE may have a double warrant. I discuss this option in Sect. 5.

  5. According to my taxonomy of argument types, Morrison’s interpretation can also be read as an indispensability interpretation.

  6. In fact, it is hard to interpret Maddy’s (2007, p. 406) own explication and analysis of Perrin’s argument for the existence of atoms other than as an IBE. Even according to Maddy’s own account, Perrin inferred the existence of unobservable atoms from the fact that they produced an observable pattern that was identical to the pattern of Brownian motion of observable entities, where the production of such Brownian motion by atoms had been a novel prediction of statistical thermodynamics.

  7. I thank Yemima Ben-Menahem for drawing my attention to the resemblance between Hacking and Vico.

References

  • Bardon, A. (2006). Transcendental Arguments. In J. Fieser & B. Dowden (Eds.), The internet encyclopedia of philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/

  • Ben-Menahem, Y. (1990). Inference to the best explanation. Erkenntnis, 33, 319–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boon, M., & Knuuttila, T. (2011). Breaking up with the epochal break: The case of engineering sciences. In A. Nordmann, H. Radder, & G. Schiemann (Eds.), Science transformed? Debating claims of an epochal break. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, J. R. (1997). Proofs and pictures. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 48(2), 161–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carrier, M. (2011). Knowledge is power’, or how to capture the relationship between science and technoscience. In A. Nordmann, H. Radder, & G. Schiemann (Eds.), Science transformed? Debating claims of an epochal break (pp. 43–53). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, N. (1983). How the laws of physics lie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chakravartty, A. (2007). A metaphysics for scientific realism: Knowing the unobservable. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chakravartty, A. (2013). Scientific realism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

  • Collins, H. (1985). Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colyvan, M. (2014). Indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathphil-indis/

  • Day, T., & Kincaid, H. (1994). Putting inference to the best explanation in its place. Synthese, 98(2), 271–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enoch, D. (2011). Taking morality seriously: A defense of robust realism. Oxford: OUP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gelfert, A. (2003). Manipulative success and the unreal. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 17(3), 245–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giere, R. (1988). Explaining science: A cognitive approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. I. (2001). Experts: Which ones should you trust? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63(1), 85–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2002). How to Reid Moore. The Philosophical Quarterly, 52(209), 544–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grundmann, T., & Misselhorn, C. (2003). Transcendental arguments and realism. In H.-J. Glock (Ed.), Strawson and kant (pp. 205–218). Oxford: Oxford UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening: Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1988). The participant irrealist at large in the laboratory. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 39(3), 277–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1989). Extragalactic reality: The case of gravitational lensing. Philosophy of Science, 56(4), 555–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardwig, J. (1985). Epistemic dependence. The Journal of Philosophy, 82(7), 335–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitcher, P. (1993). The advancement of science: Science without legend, objectivity without illusions. Oxford: Oxford UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladyman, J. (2014). Structural realism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/

  • Lehoux, D. (2012). What did the romans know? An inquiry into science and worldmaking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lipton, P. (2003). Kant on wheels. Social Epistemology, 17(2&3), 215–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lipton, P. (2004). Inference to the best explanation (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, T. D., & Clarke, S. (2002). Introduction: Scientific realism and commonsense. In S. Clarke & T. D. Lyons (Eds.), Scientific realism and commonsense. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddy, P. (2007). Second philosophy: A naturalistic method. Oxford: OUP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, G. E. (1962). Proof of an external world. In Philosophical papers (pp. 126–148). New York: Collier Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M. (1990). Theory, intervention and realism. Synthese, 82(1), 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (1975). Mathematics, matter and method. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon, M. (2001). Social empiricism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, B. (1968). Transcendental arguments. The Journal of Philosophy, 65(9), 241–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zagorin, P. (1984). Vico’s theory of knowledge: A critique. The Philosophical Quarterly, 34(134), 15–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I thank Anjan Chakravartty, Jacob Stegenga, Yemima Ben-Menahem, and Daniel Steel for helpful comments and discussions. This paper was presented at the Israel Society for History and Philosophy of Science Annual Meeting, Jerusalem, 2013, and at the PSA Biennial Meeting, Chicago, 2014. I thank the audience members for helpful comments. I am grateful to the students at my seminar in philosophy of science at the Bar Ilan University Graduate Program in Science, Technology, and Society for realizing that getting at the bottom of Hacking’s argument is tricky. I thank the Dan David Foundation, the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, and the Sidney M. Edelstein Center for History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for postdoctoral fellowships.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Boaz Miller.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Miller, B. What is Hacking’s argument for entity realism?. Synthese 193, 991–1006 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0789-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0789-y

Keywords

Navigation