Representation and Realism

这个项目解决了目前许多科学哲学家，科学家和公众之间的代表性和现实主义的分歧，另一方面，许多学者在人文科学，社会科学和科学研究。 称前者为“科学现实主义者”，称后者为“人文相对主义者”。 科学现实主义者坚持认为，对科学的追求教会了我们很多关于自然世界的知识。 我们已经知道地球绕着太阳转，大陆在移动，DNA有两条相互缠绕的链。 这些事情现在都是众所周知的，不仅仅是社会上可以接受的。 但人文主义相对主义者拒绝这种说法，认为其荒谬幼稚。 他们认为，对自然界没有唯一正确的解释。 对他们来说，科学史告诉我们，不同的科学家和不同的社会是如何形成他们实际拥有的信仰的。 这显然不是关于各种真理如何被发现的故事。 用现实主义的词汇来说，科学现实主义和人文相对主义，正如通常理解的那样，都是错误的。 然而，它们都表达了关于科学本质的重要真理。 或者，用相对主义的词汇来说，对科学本质的任何解释都不适合我们的时代。 一个更适当的框架（或更令人满意的综合）将纳入两者的一些要素。 该项目的目的是开发一个框架和词汇表，用于表达称为透视现实主义的中介观点。 这种中介观点的核心是表征的概念，而用于发展这一概念的策略来自制图学。 地图具有许多理解科学家如何使用模型来表示世界所需的表征特征。 地图并不是万能的，但它体现了一种观点、一种目的和一种投射。 地图在精确度、比例、细节上各不相同，但它们设法以各种方式与真实的世界相对应。

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.