TY - JOUR
TI - Semirealism or Neo-Aristotelianism?
AU - Psillos, S.
JO - Erkenntnis
PY - 2013
VL - 78
TODO - 1
SP - 29-38
PB - Kluwer Academic Publishers
SN - 0165-0106, 1572-8420
TODO - 10.1007/s10670-012-9418-z
TODO - null
TODO - Chakravartty claims that science does not imply any specific metaphysical theory of the world. In this sense, science is consistent with both neo-Aristotelianism and neo-Humeanism. But, along with many others, he thinks that a neo-Aristotelian outlook best suits science. In other words, neo-Aristotelianism is supposed to win on the basis of an inference to the best explanation (IBE). I fail to see how IBE can be used to favour neo-Aristotelianism over neo-Humeanism. In this essay, I aim to do two things. Firstly, I explain why this failure is not idiosyncratic: it should be there even by Chakravartty's lights. Secondly, I raise some critical worries about Chakravartty's semirealism, especially in connection with the concept of a 'concrete structure' and the detection/auxiliary distinction. The essay ends with a dilemma: an exclusive disjunction encapsulated in its title. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
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