Mario Bunge’s Scientific Realism

Alberto Cordero

Published online: 20 April 2012� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This paper presents and comments on Mario Bunge’s scientific realism. After a

brief introduction in Sects. 1 and 2 outlines Bunge’s conception of realism. Focusing on the

case of quantum mechanics, Sect. 3 explores how his approach plays out for problematic

theories. Section 4 comments on Bunge’s project against the background of the current

debate on realism in contemporary analytic philosophy.

1 Introduction

Mario Bunge champions the idea that science provides the best knowledge we have and the

only sound foundation for social and political action. His realism is the product of an

intellectually rich and varied life devoted to articulating a ‘‘scientific philosophy’’ in tune

with current knowledge and methodology, a comprehensive system in which ontology,

metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, psychology, and science in general advance each

other coherently. His writings and presentations are renowned for his commanding

critiques of positions that belittle either reason, the search for truth, realism, the univer-

sality of science, scientific naturalism, or respect for human beings as individuals.

In Bunge’s view, the goal to capture objective facts of reality, particularly mathemat-

ically describable invariant relations and laws, commits science to realism1; indeed, to him,

only a strong realist attitude makes theoretical and practical sense. He is one of the

staunchest critics of social constructivism, phenomenalism, and antirealist positions in

general. Bunge’s rejection of such trends is not shy:

Antirealism is out of step with science and technology, intent as they are on exploring or alteringreality. Antirealism is not just wrong: it is utterly destructive, because it proclaims a total void:ontological, epistemological, semantic, methodological, axiological, ethical, and practical. Suchintegral nihilism or negativism, reminiscent of Buddhism, discourages not only objective evaluation

A. Cordero (&)CUNY Graduate Center and Queens College CUNY, City University of New York,New York City, NY, USAe-mail: corde@prodigy.net

1 E.g. Bunge (1993).

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Sci & Educ (2012) 21:1419–1435DOI 10.1007/s11191-012-9456-6

and rational action, but also the exploration of the world. It is at best an academic game. (Bunge2006, p. 87)

In contemporary mainstream philosophy, the project of scientific realism comprises several

crucial tasks, particularly these two: first, articulating a clear notion of realism and second,

specifying which theories or descriptions merit realist interpretation. The next section gives

a synopsis of Bunge’s efforts to meet the first task.

2 Four Realist Theses

Bunge’s thoughts on realism permeate his publications. His realist perspective—at once

philosophical and scientific, materialist and humanist, systemist and emergentist—

impinges on all the central areas (ontology, epistemology, semantics, methodology, axi-

ology, moral philosophy, and praxology). This section concentrates on Bunge’s realist

views most directly related to science.

2.1 Ontological Thesis

The cornerstone of Bunge’s philosophy is the claim that there is a world external to and

independent of the mind, a thesis for which he argues from general considerations and also

from the special sciences.2 One argument particularly appealing to Bunge is the time-

honored inference from error, i.e. that error is a strong indicator of the existence of a world

independent of our thoughts and social arrangements. Subjectivists, he notes, can explain

why scientists ‘‘succeed’’—because they construct the phenomenal world—but they have

an exceedingly hard time explaining the frequent occurrence of clashes between scientific

hypotheses and data. Another argument Bunge favors draws from the overall scientific

picture, particularly what the various scientific disciplines take for granted. Biology, for

instance, explicitly claims that, in order to live and develop, all organisms (including, as

Bunge stresses, subjectivist philosophers) must take nutrients and energy from sources

external to them. Findings by neuroscientists conclude that the brain needs external

stimulation in order to develop. Historical hypotheses take for granted not just the reality of

the past but also the assumption that historical studies do not ‘‘change’’ or ‘‘construct’’ the

past itself.

As noted, also emphasized by Bunge is the rise of invariance as an ontological marker in

physics. In Galilean and Newtonian mechanics, different uniformly-moving frames of

reference produce different descriptions only at a ‘‘superficial’’ level. At deeper levels of

representation, they describe the same physical quantities, namely force, mass, and

acceleration in terms invariant to all reference frames. Invariance identifies aspects of the

world whose descriptions are the same in any two such frames. Bunge takes arguments

from invariance used in physics to ground talk about the existence of concrete things, the

basis for which is that fundamental laws (e.g. Newton’s Second Law) are invariant to

certain changes of reference frame (translation, reflection, rotation, uniform motion).

Newtonians, Bunge notes, understood the ‘‘force of inertia’’ as a Galilean-invariant

quantity. Subsequently, at the dawn of the 20th century Einstein raised this marker of

objectivity to the more general and encompassing realm of Lorentzian invariance; since

then physics has furthered oriented itself toward invariant posits.

2 See, for example, Bunge (1977, 1997a, Chap. 3.2, 2006, Chaps. 1.8, 10.1).

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Like most realists, Bunge appeals to the standard abductive argument—the achieve-

ments of the empirical sciences betoken a world ‘‘out there.’’ He recognizes that abductive

argumentation is not logically first class, however. This is not a deterrent from Bunge’s

perspective. Being a scientistic naturalist, he does not rely exclusively on water-tight

logical proofs. What, in his view, makes realism compelling is that the success achieved by

science coheres splendidly with the Ontological Thesis and not at all with the alternatives.

According to Bunge, the considerations listed above should lead people to abandon

ontological idealism in all its forms. He thinks that only confusion and malpractice can

result from blurring the distinction between concrete real objects (things) and what hap-

pens to them on the one hand, and conceptual objects (ideas, including data, hypotheses

and theories about facts) on the other.

2.2 Epistemological Thesis

Bunge’s epistemological complement to the independence thesis comprises three key

claims3:

(2.2a) External reality (hereafter ‘‘reality’’) is knowable and describable at least up to a point; throughexperience, reason, imagination, and criticism, it is possible to obtain some truth about the world andourselves.

(2.2b) The resulting knowledge of reality is variously problematic—indirect, beyond the reach of thehuman senses, abstract, incomplete, and fallible.

(2.2c) Although variously flawed, our knowledge can be improved.

Claims (2.2a) and (2.2c) oppose skepticism and relativism. Claim (2.2b) distances

Bunge’s position from Naı̈ve Realism; as noted it involves five key admissions:

(i) Inference: The indirectness clause recognizes that claims of theoretical knowledge gain epistemicstrength from intricate inferences rather than ‘‘directly’’ from perception or rational intuition.4 Noperson can see viruses without the aid of instruments like the electron microscope. The shape andbiology of our extinct ancestors can only be reconstructed though a complex network of inferences inwhich current scientific knowledge, reasoning, imagination and experience all functionharmoniously.

(ii) Abstraction: Theories are abstract representations of domains of interest and, as such, they areinstantiated by models that should be expected to fit that domain only approximately, as idealizations.

(iii) Idealization: Although aimed at the world, the systems considered by scientific theories areidealizations of the more complex systems we find in nature. For example, theories of the Solarsystem take into account just a fraction of the components of the actual system, and do so in terms ofgravitational interactions only.

(iv) Incompleteness: Concrete natural objects are indefinitely rich in information; this has episte-mological consequences. We build our knowledge of reality on limited facts from the objects thatinterest us. Every scientific quest for information focuses on just some aspects of the world, selectedout of indefinitely many potentially available to us. Each scientific discipline looks for aspects that itconsiders relevant for the description, explanation and prediction of its intended objects. No scientistdescribes anything in terms of all the possible variables that might be relevant to it. For example,physicists describe the silver atom by its atomic and mass numbers, and its energy levels. Theresulting descriptions ignore numerous aspects of the ‘‘total reality’’ of any silver atom —itsimmediate location, the biological species and mountains near it, the spectrum of radio waves in itsvicinity, the locations of large deposits of silver on Earth, the languages spoken by silver minerstoday, and so forth.

3 Bunge (1985, Chap. 2.6; 2006, Chap. 10.2).4 Bunge (1974, 1998, Chap. 5).

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(v) Fallibility: Our inability to prove or refute conclusively any general claim makes scientificknowledge fallible. Such knowledge as we have is never established beyond all possible doubts. Thesources of this limitation are many. One comes from the inconclusiveness of inductive inference;another source is the array of presuppositions and assumptions under which science and its appli-cations operate (including metaphysical theories and background and auxiliary hypotheses). Factorsof this sort ruin the prospects of achieving conclusive verification or refutation.

Bunge agrees with critics of science that theories usually turn out to be erroneous as full

proposals. In his view, however, history also shows that successful scientific theories do

not turn out to be false in all respects and that they can be improved.5 This claim is the core

of his ‘‘meliorism,’’ a view according to which ideas originally erroneous can be amended

and rendered closer to the truth.

2.3 Semantic Thesis

This component of Bunge’s realism takes as framework the above ontological and epis-

temological theses. It comprises four interrelated claims6:

(2.3a) Some propositions refer to (are about) facts as opposed to just other ideas.

(2.3b) We can discern the genuine referents of a scientific theory by identifying its fundamentalpredicates and analyzing their conceptual connections to determine what role they play in thetheory’s laws.

(2.3c) Some factual propositions are approximately true.

(2.3d) Any approximation to the truth can be improved.

The ‘‘genuine referents’’ of a theory, Bunge holds, are those associated with the vari-

ables included in its laws. Claim (2.3c) expresses Bunge’s version of truth as correspon-

dence—truth consists in adequacy to reality. The received notion of correspondence, he

acknowledges, remains vague and incomplete, and requires substantial work: It is unsat-

isfactory in the case of negative and general propositions, does not make room for partial

truths, and does not take into account the importance of external coherence of propositions

(‘‘systemicity’’ in his vocabulary). But, Bunge thinks the problems so far encountered can

be corrected. His proposal for so doing deviates from ‘‘mainstream’’ approaches in that it

lets propositions lack inherent truth values. Truth value, Bunge suggests, emerges in a

proposition only after it is put to test and may change in the course of the relevant

investigation. How much room for a ‘‘correspondence’’ view Bunge leaves here, and how

free his proposal is of the problems associated with the coherence theory of truth, remain to

be seen. This part of his project is still a work in progress. Claim (2.3d) is the semantic

complement to his meliorist thesis.

2.4 Methodological Realism

Another facet of Bunge’s realism focuses on methodology and comprises three main

proposals7: (2.4a) Methodological scientism, (2.4b) Bunge’s version of the testability

requirement, and (2.4c) a mechanismic agenda for scientific explanation.

(2.4a) Scientism asserts that the general methods for acquiring knowledge developed by scienceprovide by far the most effective strategy we have for exploring the world. The methods of science

5 Bunge (2006, p. 255).6 Bunge (1974, 2006, Chap. 10:3).7 Bunge (1997b, 2001, Chap. II; 2006, Chap.10.4).

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use reason, experience and imagination; their main use is in the development and evaluation oftheories. The latter, Bunge notes, do not arise solely from inductive practice; their development ismediated by the imagination of the scientists involved, constrained by prior learning and currentmethodological guidelines. This being so, precautions must be taken. Accordingly, from theirinception scientific hypotheses go through stringent screenings to check if they are satisfactory interms of general probity, compatibility with current scientific knowledge (external adequacy) andempirical testability (external control).

(2.4b) Regarding any scientific theoretical proposal, it must be possible to subject some of itsdistinctive predictions to demanding empirical tests. Since, in principle, the results of any such testimpinge on all the assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses contributing to the predictions involved,testing impacts the claims of a theory ‘‘globally’’ rather than ‘‘individually.’’ As a result, theory-testing requires considerable judgment on the part of experienced scientists.8

(2.4c) According to Bunge, one cannot rest content with successful phenomenological (‘‘black box’’)hypotheses. It is good methodology, he urges, to increase the search for regularities in the world with‘‘mechanismic’’ explanations. In Bunge’s writings the term ‘‘mechanismic’’ refers to entities andprocesses of any kind invoked to explain discovered regularities.9 The posits invoked may bemechanical, electrical, chemical, cellular, organismic, ecological, psychological, economic or cul-tural. A claim may arise as a purely phenomenological hypothesis (e.g. that populations evolve), andget ‘‘mechanismic’’ explanation only later (for example, in terms of general processes by whichpopulations evolve, e.g. mutation, natural selection, and reproductive isolation).

The ontological, epistemological, semantic and methodological theses outlined above

are continuous with other major parts of Bunge’s philosophy. As a supporter of the

Enlightenment project, Bunge also takes a strongly realist position in axiology, moral

philosophy and practical philosophy in general. As such he argues that there exist values

whose rooting in biological and social needs makes them objective. Examples of objective

values for human beings include health, security, knowledge and privacy. This side of

Bunge’s realism exceeds the limits of the present article.

I think Bunge does an excellent job of articulating a notion of realism worth having. As

indicated, however, there is a second pending job for realists, and it becomes pressing once

it is admitted (as Bunge does) that full theories are very likely wrong and testing impacts

the claims of a theory ‘‘globally’’ rather than ‘‘individually.’’ The job is to identify within

the scientific picture theoretical explanations and descriptions towards which it is rea-

sonable to take a realist stance. On this second task Bunge points in seemingly very

promising directions. But the devil is in the details. It is useful, therefore, to see how

Bunge’s conception plays out in his reactions to conundrums regarding existing theories.

One of the most insidious anti-realist suggestions ever has a home in what is presently our

most fundamental theory of matter—quantum mechanics, a theory of extraordinary pre-

dictive power but filled with riddles. Bunge’s response to this case provides a good ground

to discuss key aspects of his realist position ‘‘in action.’’

3 The Case of Quantum Mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a theory at once thriving and puzzling. Its predictions of the

behavior of microscopic systems are without parallel in science. And yet, three-quarters of

a century after the theory’s formalism reached stable form,10 there is still limited

8 Bunge (1997a, Chap. 3.7).9 Bunge (1997b, 2006, Chap. 5).10 This takes as reference point John von Neumann’s The Mathematical Foundations of QuantumMechanics (1932/1955).

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agreement regarding what quantum mechanics describes and what part of the story it tells

about the material world can be taken seriously.

In the traditional scientific picture, observation and measurement are understood as

processes that reveal features a target object has prior to measurement. Also, physical

objects are assumed to be ‘‘complete’’ in terms of the properties applicable to them—that

is, at every moment in the lifetime of an object, every dynamical quantity applicable to it

has a sharp value. This conception of physical objects does not marry well with quantum

mechanics. In the latter the dynamical state of any object, say a proton, follows a linear law

of evolution that promotes the development of ‘‘quantum mechanical superpositions’’—

situations in which the total state ceases to specify sharp values for one or more of the

object’s applicable properties. Such superpositions seem at odds with the completeness of

property specification assumed in classical physics. For example, when a proton that is in a

superposition state with respect to spin along a given direction is checked for that property

with high precision, the proton is always found having a sharp spin value. The change from

an initially unsharp state of spin to a maximally sharp state cannot occur through opera-

tions of the linear dynamics alone. By hook or by crook, during the measurement opera-

tion, some non-linear process of evolution seems to have supplemented the dynamics. How

does this happen? That is a key issue of the ‘‘Measurement Problem’’ of quantum

mechanics.

Could the participation of ‘‘consciousness’’ (the ‘‘observer’’) in measurement situations

be the factor responsible for reducing the quantum mechanical state? Several positions

have focused on this possibility, either by placing perception at the heart of fundamental

physics (subjectivism), or in unorthodox physical terms (by making consciousness a

property that supervenes on branches of the quantum state in the position basis, as in the

so-call ‘‘many-worlds’’ approaches). Bunge deplores all such projects, which he regards as

ill-conceived and even fraudulent. In his view, quantum mechanics can and should receive

a totally physical, objectivist interpretation.

Early subjectivist responses originated in ideas drawn from Bohr, Heisenberg and other

leading theorist subsequently subsumed under the umbrella term ‘‘Copenhagen Interpre-

tation’’ (CI). The ‘‘standard’’ version of CI found in textbooks of the 1960s and 1970s turns

much of physics into a repository of mystifying recipes, yet for decades most physicists

found the doctrine there inculcated intellectually liberating, making CI the dominant

interpretation of quantum mechanics until the 1980s. Complaints against CI began to gain

strength in the early 1950s. Bunge, originally a CI supporter, soon joined the fray. In an

autobiographical essay, he recounts how in 1952 David Bohm’s writings on hidden vari-

ables woke him from his ‘‘dogmatic slumber.11’’ Ever since he has a been a fierce critic of

CI, whose sympathizers Bunge routinely portrays as gullible subjectivists who cannot even

practice what they preach.12 He is particularly enraged by suggestions that physical objects

may depend for their existence on the ‘‘observer,’’ ultimately on the intervention of any

kind of mind,13 and he repeatedly censures Bohr and his followers for claiming, as he puts

it, ‘‘that electrons and the like lack properties of their own, but acquire whatever properties

the experimenter decides to endow them with’’ (Bunge 2006, p. 36).

To Bunge, including any subjectivist element in the description of measurements (e.g.

‘‘the observer’’) amounts to ‘‘just philosophical contraband: this is why they are cheap and

hard to control’’ (2006, p. 72). The total system, he urges, should include only physical

11 Bunge (1990).12 Bunge (2006, Chap. 3.3).13 Weingartner and Dorn (1990, pp. 677–684), also Bunge (2004, 2010, Chaps. 3 and 7.5).

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constituents. Attributing the selection of measurement outcomes to mind intervention is, he

adds, inconsistent with the way quantum mechanics is actually applied and tested.

Much of what Bunge says against CI antirealism seems well-deserved.14 Until the end

of the 1970s, virtually all the leading physics textbooks implicitly endorsed CI-subjec-

tivism in ways that actually contradicted how those same textbooks applied the theory.

There has never been any proper evidence in favor CI subjectivism, which as Bunge

underlines remains speculative fiction, at best. The philosophical shortsightedness of most

CI followers and the ideological stance found in physics textbooks needed to be exposed.

We therefore have a debt of gratitude to Bunge for taking forcefully to task both the

standard CI and the rise of anti-objectivism in the broader intellectual reception of

microphysics in the twentieth century.

On the other hand, some of Bunge’s charges against CI seem unfair (particularly to

Bohr). Also, Bunge might seem to miss the positive contribution that, however inadver-

tently, CI makes to contemporary realism. I would like to comment on some claims he

makes about Bohr, the impact of CI on the rise of objectivist programs in the foundations

of quantum mechanics, and the value of ‘‘CI fiction’’ to the realist cause.

3.1 Regarding Bohr

Bunge often presents Bohr as a thinker hostile to realism—a positivist, a subjectivist, a

phenomenalist, and an operationalist.15 This seems excessive, although he did tend to

overindulge in hasty writing.16 Bohr expressed his ideas awkwardly; his writings lack

transparency. But, when pressed for clarity, Bohr took both the object-apparatus interaction

and the world to be entirely objective. He plainly denied that the experimenter can

influence experimental outcomes in quantum physics.17 Bohr defended a variety of holism,

not subjectivism. To him, the state of (say) an electron and the state of whatever was used

to detect its presence were not quantum mechanically separable during the measurement

process. It is in this sense that Bohr claimed that atomic objects lack an independent state.

Their properties, he insisted, were relative to the total situation at hand (he compared

experimental setups to reference frames in relativity theory). Bohr recognized in quantum

physics intimations of a world at odds with received ideas about what is real and possible.

His suggestions were often bizarre, but the holistic, highly relational world he envisaged

was mind-independent.The radical notion that the observer has a privileged role in quantum physics primarily

belongs with Heisenberg.18 It was he who compelled leading physicists of the 1940s and

1950s to adopt subjectivist views in response to the Measurement Problem. Some thinkers,

including von Neumann, Wigner and Wheeler, embraced this option and formulated

versions of the Projection Postulate that explicitly linked its operation to the intervention of

‘‘consciousness.’’ Their proposals have been convincingly accused of lacking coherence

with physical practice. That, however, is not the end of the ‘‘subjectivist cause’’ in quantum

mechanics. In the 1990s a host of theorists advanced more careful versions of subjectivism,

14 See, particular Bunge (1955, 1967a, b, 1973, 1985, 2006).15 References to Bohr in, for example, Bunge (1955, 1967a, b, 2006, Chap. 2).16 Bunge (1955) catches Bohr making strong subjectivist claims.17 See, for example, Bohr (1958, p. 51).18 Howard (2004).

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e.g. the ‘‘many-minds’’ approach.19 Quantum mechanical subjectivism remains to this day

without any proper evidence in its favor, but the more developed formulations of the

approach show significant improvement in overall coherence, not just relative to the initial

proposals, but to current background knowledge.

Bunge classifies Bohr as a phenomenalist in at least three respects.20 One is Bohr’s

relationist view of the Heisenberg relations, according to which dynamical properties are

not intrinsic to quantum systems but relative to the overall physical situation. The second

respect concerns the idea that measurement outcomes do not generally reveal features that

the intended object actually has prior to measurement (i.e. measurement brings about what

is measured). The third respect is the positivists view that science deals only with what is

observable through the unaided human senses.

The first and second items are part of Bohr’s view that quantum mechanics provides a

complete description of physical systems, not positivism, phenomenalism or operational-

ism. He was not so much a positivist as arguably a confused Kantian, as Bunge himself

recognizes in some of his writings.21 Nor was Bohr an ‘‘operationalist.’’ As Howard has

noted,

[In] stressing the importance of specifying the total experimental context, Bohr was not endorsingoperationalism. The quantity ‘‘electron momentum’’ is not defined by a procedure for measuringmomentum; instead, one is permitted to speak of the electron’s having a definite momentum only in aspecified experimental context. (Howard 2004, Section 2)

As said, in quantum theory the more resolute supporter of positivism and operationalism

was Heisenberg, who dreamed of a version that would be based exclusively on relations

among magnitudes directly observable. He had no shortage of followers, including many

Berkeleyian phenomenalists, e.g. Mermin (1985), willing to claim that objects (be they

atoms or the Moon) lack dynamical properties when nobody is looking.22 Bohr was not that

kind of phenomenalist. Still, it cannot be denied that even the better versions of CI had

serious deficiencies—poorly articulated notions of holism that rendered measurement

processes more unanalyzable and mysterious than there was reason for; a doctrinaire view

of the primacy of classical physics; a capricious conception of the boundary between the

worlds ruled by quantum and classical physics; a dogmatic way of ruling out cosmological

theory; and so forth.

3.2 From CI to Objectivism

On the other hand, CI was rich in insights that one cannot dismiss without loss, particularly

about non-separable states (quantum entanglement), non-locality, the analysis of dynam-

ical properties in terms of the quantum state, and the correspondence principle (which

Bunge praises23). Although the principal writings associated with CI are messy, some of

the ideas they articulated ‘‘guided’’ theorizing to predictions that subsequently gained

striking confirmation in the laboratory, and did so pretty systematically. The resulting

19 The March issue of Volume 47 (1996) of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science contains agood survey of recent subjectivist proposals.20 Bunge (1973, Chap. 4, 2006, Chap. 2).21 E.g. Bunge (1973, p. 58).22 This invocation of the Moon is not new (Pais 1979, p. 907): During one of their discussions aboutquantum mechanics Einstein asked Bohr: ‘‘…but, do you really believe the moon only exists when you lookat it?’’ Einstein apparently would not take seriously Bohr’s relationist point about dynamical properties.23 Bunge (1967b, Chap 5).

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‘‘theory’’ is not like (say) a Ptolemaic tool for describing planetary orbits, but something

with the somewhat distorted unity of a Copernican model. This alone, I suggest, makes CI

an object of philosophical interest. In addition, as already intimated, not all versions of

CI were equally at odds with realism. Importantly, many compelling critical reactions to CI

have built on the noted insights, including the most prominent projects along objectivist

and realist lines to date.

One case in point, already mentioned, is Bohm’s theory, published in 1951. Although

Bohm believed that his proposal harmonized the best ideas of Bohr and Einstein, the

physics establishment rejected it. Einstein, in particular, found in Bohm’s proposal an

elaborate interpretation of the standard theory rather the innovative approach that he

thought was needed to rid quantum mechanics of the Measurement Problem.

Nonetheless, Bohm’s theory impressed some talented minds working in the foundations

of physics at the time, Bunge being one of them, as noted earlier. In the following decades,

other lines of revision and generalization of CI would come to fruition, leading to

objectivist approaches, especially seminal contributions by G. M. Prosperi, G. C. Ghirardi,

M. Gell-Mann, W. H. Zurek, and D. Deutsch, to mention a few. Their variations on the

standard quantum theory formed the bases of leading realist proposals currently in place.

Admittedly, to date all the resulting offers remain experimentally inscrutable in practiceand thus still have the status of speculations. Speculations, however, can be of considerable

importance to realists. One reason why quantum mechanics is philosophically fascinating

is because projects like the ones just mentioned help to specify the boundaries of current

epistemological underdetermination in physics, do so by scientific criteria, and thus lead to

a better identification of theory-parts and descriptions realists can commit to.

3.3 Realism and CI-Fiction

Bunge is right that Copenhagen subjectivism was never more than a ‘‘science-fiction’’

story. There is more to its case than fiction, however. CI brings home the scientific

character and fallibility of realist stances of the sort Bunge advocates. Naturalistic stances

are defeasible. What the nature of that reality is and how much truth about a mind-

independent world science is to pursue are not matters set in advance for all time,

regardless of what we find along the way.

CI is philosophically interesting, not because of its plausibility (it has none), but because

its better developed versions seem internally coherent enough to illustrate how physics

might come to reveal a variety of mind-dependence that would mess up naturalist realism

from within. So, I suggest, something that makes CI philosophically valuable is the way it

highlights the contingent status of objectivist commitment in physics (and science in

general). Quantum mechanics might have unfolded badly for realism. It has not, but the

moral here is that physics might yet one day make subjectivism plausible: Were evidence

favorable to subjectivism ever to become available, subjectivism would gather strength

from ‘‘the scientific picture’’ the way Bunge’s Ontological Thesis now gathers support

from different parts of the current picture. To the extent that the more compelling aims of

science emerge from scientific deliberation rather than meta-scientific doctrine, realism

and objectivism cannot be sacrosanct commitments of science, come what may. The goal

to capture objective facts of reality does not commit science to realism but to ascertainable

truth. For all we know, the scientific exploration of the world might one day deliver us to a

situation in which some form of idealism and subjectivism (rather than realism and

objectivism) make the most theoretical and practical sense—which is not to suggest that

there is any likelihood that it will ever do so.

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The second task of the realist project—specifying parts of the scientific picture toward

which realism is a compelling stance—is at the center of the debate on realism in main-

stream philosophy of science. That is the subject of the next and final section.

4 Bunge and the Current Debate on Realism

According to realists, science aims to describe what lies in the world beyond the reach of

ordinary perception, and this aim—they argue—has already been achieved to a significant

degree in many areas. So, what parts of the scientific picture stand out as particularly

probable realist accomplishments (as approximately true partial descriptions), and how can

one tell? The Argument from Error supports the claim that there is a domain independent

of the mind, but it leaves open what that world is like. As Bunge emphasizes, entire parts of

the scientific picture tell of a world with entities and processes other than subjectivist

philosophers in it. But the authority of those stories rests on abductive inference from

success to truth and, unfortunately, such argumentation is problematic. Successful theories

normally get many things wrong, not the least at the level of their ‘‘genuine referents.’’

This is an issue of much contention in the current debate on realism.24

Theories as successful as Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell’s electromagnetism got a

great deal wrong. The errors are not just about minor details but about basic entities and

explanations they invoked. This feature is screened off from view by the way textbooks

and contemporary presentations ‘‘clean’’ theories out of components scientists no longer

recommend but which were crucial to the theories’ early development—and perhaps

success too. A similar remark applies to numerous other cases. Antirealists seize on this

aspect of scientific practice. Their two most enduring lines of attack focus on the global

empirical underdetermination of theories and the frailty of theoretical posits, respec-

tively.25 Realists, by contrast, express confidence in the power of standard scientific

methodology to dispel such antirealist moves. Bunge, in particular, stresses that under-

determination usually caves into comparative evaluations in terms of compatibility with

current knowledge and scientific methodology.26 Typical evaluations, he notes, start with

tests that select for accurate prediction over the greatest variety of facts. Additional checks

focus on other features, especially fruitfulness and compatibility with the worldview with

the greatest rational agreement in the scientific community. Sometimes these measures fail

to select a clear winner, but even then—Bunge adds—‘‘underdetermination with respect to

evidence at a certain time does not entail that further evidence at some later time never

makes a difference to the empirical adequacy of the theory or hypothesis27’’ But this

reaction might seem overly hopeful.

In actual science underdetermination presents problems more difficult to resolve than

Bunge suggests. In quantum mechanics, for example, the task of explaining the standard

quantum algorithm is marred by resilient levels of a ‘‘lesser’’ sort of underdetermination—

effective as opposed to logical or ‘‘global’’ empirical underdetermination. Such leading

objectivist projects as GRW, Many Decohering Worlds, and Bohmian Mechanics describe

different realities and make contrasting predictions about what we should find in the world,

24 Chakravartty (2011) contains an excellent introduction to the current debate.25 Chakravartty (2011).26 Bunge (1999, 199).27 E.g. Bunge (1997a, p. 133).

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but the predictions they issue turn out to be much too close to each other—so close that

they cannot be empirically discerned by any currently foreseeable means.28 Further

findings might change this assessment but, from the present vantage point, telling the

theories apart ‘‘in the laboratory’’ would seemingly require scenarios like the Big Bang and

temporal intervals minute beyond currently imaginable reach. Secondly, as previously

mentioned, apart from issues of effective underdetermination, scientific theories typically

license false claims at many levels of description, as attested by such cases as Newtonian

mechanics, the various nineteeth century theories of heat, light classical electromagnetism,

and many other astonishingly successful theories.

To Bunge’s credit, he has carefully avoided mortgaging his proposal to perfectionist

expectations about either theoretical science or language. As noted in Sect. 1, he presents

theories as abstractions expected to suit their intended domains only approximately, and

then as idealizations of systems recognized to be far more complex. Furthermore, in

Bunge’s approach natural objects are indefinitely rich in information. To him, therefore,

scientific descriptions aim at relevance rather than completeness, each scientific discipline

looking for aspects considered relevant to its epistemic goals. Bunge’s fallibilism is also

important here. His realism thus draws strength, not from anticipations of perfect corre-

spondence, but meliorism. Indeed, in Bunge’s view, history shows that the failure of past

successful scientific theories has never been total—the theories in question have turned out

to be right in some respects, and in most cases they have been improved rather that totally

rejected.

This focus on successful theories not being complete failures—and the associated

thought that their success indicates that some significant parts in them succeed epistemi-

cally—is at the heart of the contemporary debate on realism. As suggested, most realists

have shifted the conjectured relationship between success and truth from full theories to

theory-parts. One crucial task, again, is to identify the parts that successful theories get

right. Unless realists provide a reasonably principled way of identifying those parts the

realist thesis will amount to a near triviality, namely, that ‘‘somewhere in the body of

theoretical descriptions and explanations licensed by a theory some parts ring somehow

true.’’ Meeting this challenge has turned out more complicated than it at first appeared.

Prominent hurdles include current versions of the two antirealist lines mentioned at the

beginning. Their most influential presentations are by van Fraassen (1980) and by Laudan

(1981). The ensuing antirealist elaborations complicate the issues with unnecessary

distractions—a strong positivist program and a concentration on logical (as opposed to

properly ‘‘scientific’’) underdetermination in van Fraassen’s case, and adherence to suspect

theories of scientific language and truth in Laudan’s case. Nevertheless, the arguments at

hand still make serious points about the realist project.

4.1 Underdetermination

The line advanced by van Fraassen accentuates global empirical underdetermination and

epistemological caution—science should seek theoretical proposals that are empirically

adequate rather than true. Bunge unreservedly rejects this as a move long obsolete:

At present, for instance, epistemological phenomenalism survives in a version called ‘constructiveempiricism’ (van Fraassen 1980). It should come as no surprise that this view is avowedly antirealist.After all, phenomenalism is the last-ditch stand of anthropomorphism. (Bunge 1997a, p. 70)

28 Ghirardi et al. (1986), Cordero (2001).

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In our own time some famous philosophers, such as Bas van Fraassen, believe that quantummechanics calculates phenomena (appearances) rather than physical properties inaccessible to thesenses, such as atomic energy levels and scattering cross sections. (Bunge 2010, p. ix)

Not surprisingly (given this level of dismissal), Bunge has not shown much interest in

engaging with the mainstream debate on constructive empiricism. I think this is

unfortunate for everyone concerned, because much in that debate bears on topics central

to Bunge’s proposal.

One response to antirealist moves based on logical or global underdetermination is that

ordinary claims also are equally affected by it—i.e. global underdetermination is not a

problem specifically about science.29 Descriptive frameworks generally allow for multiple

‘‘possible interpretations,’’ especially at high theoretical levels. For all we know, you and I

might be dreaming this world, be brains in a vat, or be in some similarly deviant condition.

The realist point is then that the relevant worries are those that focus on specific

descriptions or explanations, as opposed ‘‘global’’ skeptical worries that apply to every-

thing equally. Admittedly, this provides only part of the response needed. Scientific criteria

for theory choice reduce the number of offers on the table at a given time, but rarely to just

one. Considerations other than predictive power may then shift the balance, as Bunge

suggests, but the extent to which this helps depends on the relative weights that external

coherence, explanatory power, fruitfulness and so forth receive—and these vary across the

scientific community. Hopes of success regarding instances of scientific underdetermina-

tion seemingly require more grounds than Bunge provides. The history of science is rich in

suggestive cases.

Consider, for example, the multiple ontological interpretations that classical mechanics

allows for (Jones 1991). In one ontology, point particles act upon each other at a distance;

in another, action takes place only by contact, through a strictly local field; in a third

ontology, the motion of bodies is determined by total trajectories between spatial points; in

yet another, post-Einsteinian picture, space–time is both put at the center of the ontology

and endowed with causal efficacy. What, then, might a realist about classical mechanics be

realist about? Discrepancies about the relative weights appropriate for the various

epistemic values and methodological criteria lead to diverging choices of ‘‘best interpre-

tation.’’ Differences in how the background theories are accepted add to the divergence.

Accordingly, the choice of ontology for classical mechanics will vary depending on

whether general relativity or quantum mechanics is granted a deeper realist interpretation.

To the extent that multiple ontological frameworks remain legitimately available, then

realism about the most fundamental level of classical mechanics will lack universality

within the wide scientific perspective. Jones’ paper invites a pessimistic general conclusion

beyond the case of classical mechanics: ontologies, he suggests, are doomed to fall prey to

the ghost of empirical equivalence—physicists may continue hoping to reveal the most

fundamental ontology of the universe, but they will not succeed.

Jones’ conclusion is a blow to realism, but arguably not a fatal one. Importantly, in the

case of classical mechanics (and apparently all cases of interest) the multiple ontological

frameworks converge dramatically at intermediate levels of depth, leaving no ambiguity

regarding vast portions of the theoretical picture. Such is the situation regarding, for

example, numerous structural aspects about ensembles of particles, a great deal concerning

the phases of matter, the ‘‘nature’’ of heat and its laws, fluids, pressure waves, and so forth;

also, under regimes of low energy and gravity, orbits (past and future; planetary, stellar and

galactic) and their ‘‘laws;’’ and all sorts of histories too. This suggestion seems to

29 Shapere (1984, Part III).

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generalize well for other domains of interest. For example, on the subject of physical light,

theoreticians from Fresnel to Lorentz got ‘‘everything’’ wrong regarding the ‘‘deepest

nature’’ of light (their hypothesized foundational posit, the ether, turned out not to even

exist). Nevertheless, independently of Fresnel’s assumptions about the physical constitu-

tion of the stuff we commonly call ‘‘light,’’ he was right about much regarding light

propagation and even its ‘‘nature’’ (understood in terms of not just the basic referents of

any theory but the network of effective physical laws and regularities that govern light).

Likewise, later in the story, Maxwell would prove right about much more regarding light,

even though his theory also erred about key aspects of the ontology—not least about light’s

‘‘need’’ of a supporting mechanical medium.

Moving to a more recent example, the already noted case of effective underdetermin-

ation in quantum theories leaves equally in place a considerable theoretical core to be

realist about. So, even if scientists may have little prospect of articulating anything like

‘‘the fundamental ontology of the world,’’ they—realists can argue— have already been

able to put together a detailed (far reaching and highly textured) explanatory description of

the natural world at ‘‘intermediate’’ theoretical levels—well above those of ordinary, pre-

theoretical descriptions, not to mention perceptual phenomena. Admittedly, important

areas of the scientific picture remain undeserving of realist commitment, and there is no

telling if, when, or how much of the current instantiations of effective underdetermination

will be removed from it. In a scientific philosophy, methodological meliorism is a scientific

stance, not a stance based on metascientific determination or prophecy. Hints from physics

suggest we may never manage to decide whether physical reality is ontically deterministic

or indeterministic, or whether decohering quantum ‘‘worlds’’ indeed develop into worlds,

among other frustrations. Effective empirical underdetermination does compromise levels

of theoretical description traditionally dear to realists. But then, as suggested, the impact of

this misfortune is usually confined to just certain theoretical levels.30

My points, then, are these. Van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism seems largely as

unreasonable as Bunge suggests. However, if the previous comments are correct, van

Fraassen’s call for epistemological prudence has some basis. The radically empiricist

boundary he proposes for restricting belief may be just ideological, but the appropriateness

of specifying some boundary along (more reasonable, non-phenomenalist lines) is not.

Entire sections in the body of explanations and descriptions sanctioned by our most suc-

cessful theories fail to convince. Current instances of effective underdetermination are all

both contingent and defeasible in principle. However, while in place, they epistemologi-

cally tax realist interpretation. One important point, I suggest, is that the debate on case-

studies like the ones considered in this section help advance Bunge’s realist project,

especially by making explicit its scientific character and by emphasizing the importance of

epistemic prudence in any naturalist realist perspective.

4.2 Theory-Parts

The second leading antirealist line I pointed to springs from Laudan (1981). Using as his

basis a holistic view of language and the failure of realists to clarify their talk of

‘‘approximate truth’’ and theoretical progress, Laudan uses the failures of past theories and

(in his view) the dispensability of truth for success to ‘‘confute’’ the presumed realist

relationship between empirical success and truth. While Bunge defends the possibility of

epistemic progress at theoretical levels, his scientific approach keeps him away from grand

30 Cordero (2001).

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convergentist claims like the one Laudan (1981) seeks to ‘‘confute.’’31 For starters, Bun-

ge’s realist position is not directly affected by arguments to the falsity of full theories. As

noted earlier, to him theories are abstract representations, instantiated by models expected

to fit their intended objects only approximately and as idealizations. I indicated in Sect. 2,

how, from his perspective, successful scientific theories advance a form of knowledge that

is indirect, abstract, incomplete, and fallible.

More challenging to Bunge (and realists in general) is Laudan’s objection regarding the

lack of a compelling notion of approximate truth. Bunge’s semantic realism makes

promising gestures in the right direction but, as already noted, this part of his proposal

remains a work in progress. At any rate, it seems debatable whether the required idea of

‘‘approximate description’’ needs to be tied to semantic theory proper. An ongoing, sim-

pler, alternative shifts the focus of realism and scientific progress toward the ways in which

a description comprises parts that are less rich in content and thus more easily true; this

leads to an emphasis on ‘‘theory-parts.’’ At any rate, given the noted epistemological

indirectness of theoretical claims, to get off the ground realism needs a clear notion of

either ‘‘approximate truth’’ or ‘‘truthful theory part.’’ Without either, any claim about

progressive theoretical knowledge seems doomed triviality.

Do realists have resources available for the task at hand? My previous comments on

effective underdetermination emphasized how the latter leaves room for converging the-

orizing and growth in content and texture at certain levels. Even if theories as full pro-

posals are usually false, realists can still try to point to theory-parts and partial narratives

that get their story right. The question is whether they can identify those parts in a

reasonably reliable manner. Realists with naturalist sympathies may expect that current

scientific methodology will separate the wheat from the chaff, that methodology will

concentrate the evidential weight of empirical success on the more accurate parts of the

theoretical picture at the expense of those seriously off the mark. The idea is that science

gets right those parts of its description for which there is strong evidence by current

methodological standards. But which parts are those? Again, the history of mature science

is rich in warnings against excessive optimism about the way theory-parts receive con-

firmational weight in scientific practice.

Experienced scientists often stumble in their allocations of evidential weight to theory-

parts, not least to the ‘‘genuine referents’’ of successful theories. Fresnel’s theory and the

subsequent ether-based theories of the nineteenth century caution that, even when modern

standards of theory choice produce clear selections, the intended part of the world may be

radically unlike the selected description says. Successful application of Fresnel’s theory

did not then (or now) correctly indicate that his ideas about a mechanical ether, on which

the theory was originally built, are true at all (to repeat, there is no mechanical ether in

nature). And so, if, in a theory, the genuine referents are those associated with the variables

included in its principles and laws, then the realist case for them can be weak. In Fresnel’s

original theory, the variables in his now famous laws made firm reference (deleted in later

reconstructions) to the now discarded ether.32 Analogous cases are prevalent in the history

of modern science (including the theories of caloric, phlogiston, and classical electro-

magnetism). So, to the extent that standard scientific practice often allocates evidential

import to the genuine referents of a theory, scientific methodology would seem to be at

fault here.

31 Laudan (1981) even cites Bunge approvingly.32 Cordero (2011).

1432 A. Cordero

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We are thus back to the question about how a theory can be ‘‘partially’’ or ‘‘approxi-

mately’’ true even if some or all of its ‘‘genuine referents’’ fail to refer. Sterling success

(empirical or theoretical) is compatible with deep epistemic failure where least expected.

Synchronic allocation of evidential weight done by scientists on the basis of their best

methodological criteria can err dramatically. From Fresnel to Hertz, success seemed to

converge so much on the ether posit as to leave virtually no room for ‘‘scientific doubt.’’

Confidence in the ether’s existence was supreme:

You can imagine particles of something, the thing whose motion constitutes light. This thing we callthe luminiferous ether. That is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we aresure of, and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether. (William Thomson (laterLord Kelvin): Notes of Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light (1884). Myitalics)

Such expressions give pause to defenders of realist perspectives. Empirical success is

not as easy a marker of truth as scientists often claim. So, Laudan’s implausible focus on

whole theories and his controversial conceptions of meaning and truth should not detract

from a more general concern about realism hinted by his argument, namely, the referential

failure of theory-parts singled out as ‘‘safe’’ by extant scientific criteria. Regardless of

Laudan’s views on language or his focus on full theories, it is a fact that specific theory-

parts favored by current methodology have turned out to be off the mark in disturbing

ways. This fact does not ‘‘disprove’’ the realist relationship between empirical success and

truth. It does, however, show the need for a crispier suggestion about how to identify in the

scientific picture parts that are highly likely to be ‘‘approximately true.’’

Presently, one leading realist response to this challenge—variously advanced in recent

decades by Philip Kitcher, Jarrett Leplin, Stathis Psillos (KLP), among others—grants

Laudan’s point about the failure of theories ‘‘taken as wholes’’ but then shifts the success-

truth link from whole theories to selected theory-components.33 For example, according to

KLP, Fresnel’s theories referred to the ether, but not essentially so in the derivation of

diffraction patterns. In their view, Fresnel didn’t actually need the ether in order to derive

the experimental tests and predictions that made his theories success stories, because other

conceptual paths to the relevant equations and claims were available at the time (e.g.

abstract Lagrangian formulations).

Although attractive and influential, I think this line of response fails. In Fresnel’s

derivation of diffraction patterns, it is far from clear how his use of the ether concept might

have been ‘‘inessential’’ or ‘‘idle.’’ KLP count on synchronic tracking being discerning

enough to single out theory-parts that get right some causal and structural descriptions of

the domain at hand, but the arguments they provide for this thesis look seriously flawed, as

critics have variously pointed out.34 The ether posit was crucial to Fresnel’s articulation

and deployment of his theory and the way he and his circle understood its achievements.

Indeed the posit remained strongly adhered to by nearly everybody in the know until the

early years of the twentieth century, as attested by end-of century reports around 1900. One

key reason for this was an entrenched metaphysical core that persisted in the practice of

physics two decades beyond the advent of Special Relativity.35 In the ether case, meta-

physical entanglements destroyed the synchronic realist strategies endorsed by KLP.

None of this means that the undertaking of scientific realism is in serious (let alone

‘‘terminal’’) trouble only that the issues raised by Laudan’s argument cannot be glossed

33 Kitcher (1993), Leplin (1997), Psillos (1999).34 For a list of references see Cordero (2011).35 See Cordero (2011, 2012), and references thereof.

Mario Bunge’s Scientific Realism 1433

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over. For a realist stance to be relevant to successful theories we need a criterion for

identifying theory-parts that are not just ‘‘currently beyond reasonable doubt’’ but also

highly likely to be true. I think that is a goal within reach, but further work is still needed.

The unveiled implausibility of synchronic approaches to the identification of theory-parts

worthy of realist commitment simply must give way to diachronic approaches.36

5 Concluding Remarks

Mario Bunge’s clarity about the character and advantages of realism is a welcome relief in

an age of so much confusion about the possibility of achieving truth and objectivity.

Bunge’s contribution to advancing realism cannot be exaggerated. There is still crucial

work to do, for example on identifying parts of the scientific picture of the world that merit

realist commitment. On this and other matters I think Bunge’s ideas are on the right track,

even if rough patches stand in the way. His is a project certainly worth fighting for.

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