Observability and Abstraction: Two Challenges for the Adoption of Scientific Realism in Philosophy of Social Sciences

Abstract

Traditionally, scientific realism (the view that sciences’ success depends on the truth of their contents), implies the distinction between observable and unobservable entities. However, when we see the social sciences, it seems to be that this distinction is untenable. Does it mean that scientific realism is unsustainable for social sciences? In this paper, I defend the idea that scientific realism is a possible approach in philosophy of social sciences, but in a different way than the traditional account. When we analyze social sciences, we see that scientific realism can dispense with the observable/unobservable distinction, and in turn, we need to focus the debate on relation to the assumptions behind generation of explanations, especially in the case of causal explanations. The main implication of this view is that, in the case of social sciences, the support of scientific realism is not at the level of ontological commitments, but instead in the methodological commitments that guide research design.
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