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SUMMARY:Beyond truth-as-correspondence: realism for realistic people - Has
 ok Chang (Department of History and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20180308T153000Z
DTEND:20180308T170000Z
UID:TALK98536@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:In this paper I present arguments against the epistemological 
 ideal of 'correspondence'\, namely the deeply entrenched notion that empir
 ical truth consists in the match between our theories and the world. The c
 orrespondence ideal of knowledge is not something we can actually pursue\,
  for two reasons: it is difficult to discern a coherent sense in which sta
 tements correspond to language-independent facts\, and we do not have the 
 kind of independent access to the 'external world' that would allow us to 
 check the alleged statement–world correspondence. The widespread intuiti
 on that correspondence is a pursuable ideal is based on an indefensible ki
 nd of externalist referential semantics. The idea that a scientific theory
  'represents' or 'corresponds to' the external world is a metaphor grounde
 d in other human epistemic activities that are actually representational. 
 This metaphor constitutes a serious and well-entrenched obstacle in our at
 tempt to understand scientific practices\, and overcoming it will require 
 some disciplined thinking and hard work. In real practices of representati
 on correspondence holds between one conceptualised structure and another\,
  not between theory and 'world'. Any real objects we can speak about are a
 lready conceptualised entities\, not mind-controlled but mind-framed.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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