Abstract
This paper argues against a particular version of the inference from the success of a scientific theory to the claim that the theory must be approximately true to some extent. The kind of success at issue is comparative, where one theory is more empirically successful than its rival if that theory predicts phenomena that are inexplicable or anomalous according to its rival. A theory that exhibits this kind of comparative success can be seen as thereby achieving empirical progress over its rival. David Harker has developed a form of selective scientific realism based on the idea that this kind of success is evidence for the approximate truth of the parts of theories responsible for such success. Counterexamples to Harker’s position are cases in which a theory is more successful than its rival in virtue of containing parts that are not even approximately true. In order to identify some counterexamples to Harker’s position, this paper considers four historical cases that Greg Frost-Arnold has recently used to motivate a novel historical challenge to realism called the Problem of Misleading Evidence. This paper argues that these four cases are counterexamples to Harker’s position, and that they provide a strong reason to doubt his position and the kind of success-to-truth inference that he defends.
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Notes
To be sure, Einstein was not the first to make this prediction. As Lyons (2016, 2017) points out, in 1801, Johann Georg von Soldner made the same prediction from a Newtonian perspective on the grounds that light is made of corpuscles, which have mass and are therefore subject to the force of gravity. That said, Einstein’s prediction is still novel in the relevant sense because light bending was not observed until after he made his prediction. Lyons does not suggest otherwise and in fact says that Einstein’s prediction “may well constitute the exemplary instance of novel predictive success” (2016, p. 98; Lyons’ emphasis).
The locus classicus is Laudan’s (1981) list of theories that were successful but not even approximately true. However, Laudan’s list includes a number of theories that may not have exhibited novel predictive success. Lyons (2002, 2006, 2016, 2017) has uncovered a significant number of cases of novel predictive success that are relevant to the debate. Vickers (2013) provides a useful list of relevant cases that have been identified in the literature on the realism debate (including many of Lyons’ cases), as well as some cases that Vickers himself has uncovered. More recent work has uncovered additional cases—see, for example, Carman and Díez (2015), Tulodziecki (2017), Rossetter (2018), and the volume on the historical challenge to realism edited by Lyons and Vickers (2021).
Selective realist positions have been developed by Kitcher (1993), Psillos (1999), Harker (2013), Vickers (2013), and Peters (2014), among others. Chakravartty’s (1998, 2007) semirealism is a similar sort of position. The structural realist positions developed by, e.g., Worrall (1989), Ladyman (1998), Ladyman and Ross (2007), and French (2014) may also be considered forms of selective realism, though structural realists tend to reject this label (see, e.g., Ladyman 2019, p. 1).
With the exception of Laudan (1981), the work cited in footnote 3 focuses specifically on the historical challenge to selective realism.
Regarding this definition of progress, Harker (2013, p. 90) writes: “I’ll suppose [this definition] for the sake of this article … I don’t pretend the definition is unproblematic; nevertheless, my primary intention is to investigate the prospects of employing a comparative conception of success within the realist’s argument, rather than to defend a particular model of progress.” In order to evaluate Harker’s position, we need to understand what this comparative conception of success is. In this paper, I will evaluate Harker’s position in terms of the account of comparative success that he offers, which depends on the definition of progress that he supposes. I leave it to defenders of Harker’s position to show that some alternative understanding of comparative success and progress can justify Harker’s success-to-truth inference and counter the argument I offer in this paper.
A reviewer has noted that there is an issue here regarding whether there are historical cases in which a theory exhibits novel predictive success without thereby making progress over a rival theory. If there are such cases of non-comparative novel predictive success, then it’s possible that such a case could be a counterexample to the standard versions of selective realism discussed in Sect. 1, but not to Harker’s position. The reviewer states that this possibility may make Harker’s position conceptually weaker than other forms of selective realism in the sense that Harker’s focus on comparative success narrows the range of relevant cases, as well as the range of potential counterexamples. As a result, Harker’s position may have less content than other forms of selective realism. In response, I would say that, insofar as Harker’s position expands the range of relevant cases to include cases of comparative, non-novel predictive success, perhaps there is an increase in conceptual strength here that, to some extent, makes up for the conceptual weakness that the reviewer notes. Since it is not my aim to defend Harker’s position, a complete response to this objection falls outside of the scope of this paper.
Strictly speaking, the inference is not from success to parts of theories, but rather from success to the approximate truth of parts of theories. Harker is clear about this elsewhere, as when he writes: “The pattern of realist endorsement proposed thus follows the selective realist directive of inferring only the approximate truth of parts of theories” (2013, p. 93).
A reviewer has suggested that Harker’s position makes historical counterexamples less conceptually relevant than they are for abductive defenses of selective realism. Abductive defenses of selective realism imply retention. If the best explanation of an instance of novel predictive success is that the theoretical components responsible for that success are approximately true, then those components must be at least approximately retained in subsequent theories. In contrast, Harker’s main realist hypothesis does not imply retention on its own; he needs to conjoin it with an auxiliary hypothesis in order to predict instances of retention of the parts of theories responsible for comparative success. In response, as I understand Harker’s position, the main realist hypothesis and the auxiliary hypothesis are both essential parts of his position. In that case, counterexamples are not necessarily less conceptually relevant than they are for abductive defenses of selective realism. In fact, Harker would presumably maintain that historical cases are more conceptually relevant because, on his position “historical evidence plays a more direct role in defending the selective thesis” (2013, p. 95). This is because successful predictions regarding the historical record, rather than an inference to the best explanation, are supposed to justify the success-to-truth inference. However, the important point for my purposes is to evaluate Harker’s position in the way that he outlines in his paper. Offering a complete response to this objection therefore goes beyond the scope of this paper.
In contrast, Stanford’s PUA is less relevant for assessing Harker’s position since cases in which the alternative is unconceived lack the sort of comparative success on which Harker focuses.
Frost-Arnold (2019, p. 913) also discusses three other cases: the Galilean transformations, classical mechanics, and the existence of superconducting materials. I’ve set these cases aside because I think it’s more difficult to show that they are counterexamples to Harker’s selective realism. One might argue that the Galilean transformations and classical mechanics are approximately true and are therefore neither misleading evidence cases nor counterexamples to Harker’s position. And one might argue that, even if the superconducting materials case is a misleading evidence case, the issue concerning superconducting materials is an issue regarding empirical regularities rather than theories, in which case it is not relevant to assessing Harker’s position.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Ruey-Lin Chen for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Yafeng Shan for helpful comments regarding the very early stages of the project that resulted in this paper. I presented some of the material in this paper at the Taiwan-Belgium Philosophy of Science Online Workshop in September 2022, and I am thankful to the audience members for their questions and comments. I am also thankful to three anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments. Work on this paper was supported by a project funded by the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan (MOST 109-2410-H-010-014-MY2).
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Work on this paper was supported by a project funded by the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan (MOST 109-2410-H-010-014-MY2).
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Hricko, J. Comparative success and empirical progress without approximate truth. Synthese 201, 205 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04204-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04204-4