Abstracts of Invited Papers: The Case for Scientific RealismAuthor(s): Ernan McMullinSource: Noûs, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1981 A. P. A. Western Division Meetings (Mar., 1981), p. 53Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2215240 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 08:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Wiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Noûs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 08:18:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ABSTRACTS OF INVITED PAPERS

The Case for Scientific Realism ERNAN MCMULLIN

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Does the long-term success of a structural explanation in the natural sciences afford us reason to believe that something like this structure exists in the world around us? An affirmative answer to this question seems obvious to everyone except philosophers. What is the force of the philosophers' scepticism here? Is this discussion like that of the "problem" of induction, where philosophers seek a philosophically satisfactory account of a procedure whose reliability they are in the end prepared to accept? Or do the critics of realism mean to maintain that the theoretical entities of the chemist and the biologist do not give any insight into the structures of the physical worlds? In this paper, we shall explore some of the sources of anti-realism, and propose a general argument for the realist position.

Imagination as a Philosophical Problem PAUL RICOEUR

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

The paper is intended to examine the resources of Kant's tran- scendental doctrine of productive imagination and the schematism for delineating and eventually resolving the problems of semantic innova- tion. Examples will be taken from the theory of metaphor, the theory of narrative, the theory of action. and in general from the domain of creativity governed by rules.

53

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 08:18:38 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions