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> Could you please briefly explain the indispensibility argument? An extremely rough caricature: - Scientific realists claim that we should believe the entiti
by nyssos 3y ago
> Could you please briefly explain the indispensibility argument?
An extremely rough caricature:
- Scientific realists claim that we should believe the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories (electrons, for instance) exist.
- Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories
- So scientific realists should be realists about mathematical entities.
- 082349872349872 3y agoThanks. I guess I'm an instrumentalist then (due to having a strong pragmatist streak?) because I'm unconvinced that "existence" in this caricature even denotes.