Representation and Realism

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This project addresses the current disagreement about representation and realism in science between many philosophers of science, scientists, and the general public and, on the other side, many scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and science studies. Call the former group `scientific realists` and the latter `humanistic relativists.` Scientific realists insist that the pursuit of science has taught us much about the natural world. We have learned that the earth revolves around the sun, that continents move, that DNA has two intertwined strands. These things are now known, and are not merely socially acceptable to believe. But humanistic relativists reject such claims as absurdly naive. They argue that there is no uniquely correct interpretation of nature. For them, the history of science tells how different scientists and different societies came to have the beliefs they in fact had. It is emphatically not the story of how various truths came to be discovered. Stated in a realist vocabulary, both scientific realism and humanistic relativism, as typically understood, are mistaken. They both, however, express important truths about the nature of science. Or, stated in a relativist vocabulary, neither interpretation of the nature of science is appropriate for our times. A more appropriate framework (or a more satisfactory synthesis) will incorporate some elements from both. The purpose of this project is to develop a framework and vocabulary for expressing a mediating point of view called perspectival realism. At the heart of this mediating viewpoint is the notion of representation, and the strategy that will be used to develop this notion is drawn from cartography. Maps have many of the representational features needed for understanding how scientists use models to represent the world. Maps are not universal, but embody a point of view, a purpose, and a projection. Maps vary in accuracy, scale, detail, yet they manage to correspond in various ways with the real world.