Representation and Realism

本项目解决了目前许多科学哲学家、科学家、公众以及许多人文、社会科学和科学研究学者之间关于科学中的表征和现实主义的分歧。将前者称为“科学现实主义者”，将后者称为“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有两条交织在一起的链。这些事情现在已经为人所知，而且不仅仅是被社会所接受。但人文主义相对主义者认为这种说法荒谬而幼稚。他们认为对自然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上拥有的信仰的。它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主义相对主义，正如通常所理解的那样，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，这两种对科学本质的解释都不适合我们的时代。一个更合适的框架（或更令人满意的综合）将结合两者的一些元素。这个项目的目的是开发一个框架和词汇来表达一种被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则来自地图学。地图有许多代表性的特征，需要理解科学家如何使用模型来表示世界。地图不是通用的，但它体现了一种观点、一种目的和一种投影。地图在精度、比例、细节上各不相同，但它们设法以各种方式与现实世界相对应。

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.