The Pessimistic Meta-Induction. A Response to Jacob Busch
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Michael Devitt
Abstract
Jacob Busch's, ‘Entity Realism Meets the Pessimistic Meta-Induction – The World is not Enough’ (2006) criticizes my discussion, in Realism and Truth (Devitt, Princeton University Press, 1997), of scientific realism in general and of the pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) in particular (1997). I start my response with a discussion of the problem of defining scientific realism. I then argue that Busch's criticisms contain two major mistakes. First, he is wrong to think that Bertolet showed my basic abductive argument for realism to be faulty. Second, in discussing PMI, Busch places the onus in the wrong place. It is up to the proponent of PMI to establish the truth of its premise and the soundness of its inference. I don't think that the proponent has accepted this onus. It is up to the realist to show only that the truth of the premise and the soundness of the inference have not been established. I claim to have accepted that onus.
© Philosophia Press 2006
Articles in the same Issue
- Spiritual Objectivity. A systematic expansion of the body-mind-problem
- Finding a Place for Moral Theory
- Too Many Dispositional Properties
- The Problem of the Criterion, Skepticism, and the Cartesian Circle
- Limit-situation. Antinomies and Transcendence in Karl Jaspers' Philosophy
- Access to the Abstract: Intuition as Mental Modelling
- Entity Realism Meets the Pessimistic Meta-Induction Argument. The World is not Enough
- The Pessimistic Meta-Induction. A Response to Jacob Busch
- Casullo on the Nature and Existence of A Priori Justification
- Steen Ebbesen and Carl Henrik Koch, The Danish History of Philosophy, 5 volumes, Gyldendal 2002-2004
- Ole Fogh Kirkeby, Eventum tantum - begivenhedens ethos, 592 pages, Forlaget Samfundslitteratur, Copenhagen, 2005
- Alois Pichler and Simo Säätelä (eds.): Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works. Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen no 17, Bergen 2005. 420 pages. ISBN 82-91071-20-9
Articles in the same Issue
- Spiritual Objectivity. A systematic expansion of the body-mind-problem
- Finding a Place for Moral Theory
- Too Many Dispositional Properties
- The Problem of the Criterion, Skepticism, and the Cartesian Circle
- Limit-situation. Antinomies and Transcendence in Karl Jaspers' Philosophy
- Access to the Abstract: Intuition as Mental Modelling
- Entity Realism Meets the Pessimistic Meta-Induction Argument. The World is not Enough
- The Pessimistic Meta-Induction. A Response to Jacob Busch
- Casullo on the Nature and Existence of A Priori Justification
- Steen Ebbesen and Carl Henrik Koch, The Danish History of Philosophy, 5 volumes, Gyldendal 2002-2004
- Ole Fogh Kirkeby, Eventum tantum - begivenhedens ethos, 592 pages, Forlaget Samfundslitteratur, Copenhagen, 2005
- Alois Pichler and Simo Säätelä (eds.): Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works. Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen no 17, Bergen 2005. 420 pages. ISBN 82-91071-20-9
