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What Is Kitcher's Real Realist Really a Realist about?

Abstract

I review Philip Kitcher's defence of scientific realism against the so-called pessimistic induction. While supporting his overall strategy, I claim that there is a lacuna in Kitcher's argument, which needs to be filled by spelling out more precisely what parts of scientific theories we should be realists about. I attempt to do this and to show that scientific realism can thereby not only be protected against the pessimistic induction but also against a recent argument by Kyle Stanford, known as the "new induction

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