PHIL 336 PART 7

· One (1) "Original Post" addressing one of the three question choices. Minimum of 250 words. Your Original Post must answer the question fully in all its parts and address possible objections to your reasoning. You must also connect your Original Post to the course by having at least one full sentence quote and citation from one of the Required Readings of the week. The quote should be word for word and contained inside quotation marks and then followed by an inline citation. Once you quote something or even reword something you did not originally write then you need to have it in a reference section at the end of the post (again in MLA format). Please refer to the following resources for help on MLA citation. 

· MLA Citation:  http://sites.umgc.edu/library/libhow/mla_tutorial.cfm 

· MLA Citation Examples:  http://sites.umgc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm 

· DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #1: Realism Defended. Defend your belief as a scientific realist and counter argue against anti-realism. Use your knowledge of arguments (NMA, PMI, UTE) in the required readings, your own experiences and judgments to make your argument.   

· DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #2: Anti-Realism Defended: Defend your belief as a scientific anti-realist and counter argue against realism. Use your knowledge of arguments (NMA, PMI, UTE) in the required readings, your own experiences and judgments to make your argument .

· DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #3: Analyzing a scientific article. Find a scientific article on  phys.org (under any subject) and analyze it for its philosophical assumptions regarding science and ‘truth’. Does the article exhibit realist or anti-realist assumptions?  instrumentalist, constructive empiricist? Use your knowledge of arguments (NMA, PMI, UTE) in the required readings, your own experiences and judgments to make your argument.

Supplemental Online Readings

(1) C hakravartty, Anjan, “Scientific Realism.” S tanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Plato.stanford.edu (2017)

An excellent overview of the issues and definitions of scientific realism.

(2)  Liston, Michael, “Scientific Realism and Antirealism.”  Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Iep.utm.edu (2020)

A good overview of the realism / anti-realism debate.

(3) Musgrace, Alan, "The 'Miracle Argument' For Scientific Realism."  The Rutherford Journal, rutherfordjournal.org (2008)

An overview of the No Miracles Argument for Scientific Realism using historical examples.

(4) S tanford, Kyle, "Underdetermination of Scientific Theory." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. plato.stanford.edu (2017)

A good overview of the underdetermination of theory by evidence argument for scientific realism

Supplemental Online Audio/Video

(1) “What is Scientific Realism?” YouTube, uploaded by Carneades.org, Oct 18, 2015. [5:53]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3DlhNgeqZk&ab_channel=Carneades.org