The paper discusses major implications of high energy physics for the scientific realism debate. The first part analyses the ways in which aspects of the empirically well-confirmed standard model of particle physics are relevant for a reassessment of entity realism, ontological realism and structural realism. The second part looks at the implications of more far-reaching concepts like string th...

John Norton has advanced a general view of induction—‘Material Theory of Induction’—that renders ampliative reasoning in a deep sense local. This paper is a sympathetic appraisal of this view, applying it to the scientific realism debate. It argues that the scientific realist should turn to such local construal of ampliative reasoning in her attempt to justify beliefs about unobservables. More ...

There are two primary arguments against scientific realism, one pertaining to underdetermination, the other to the history of science. While these arguments are usually treated as altogether distinct, P. Kyle Stanford’s ‘problem of unconceived alternatives’ constitutes one kind of synthesis: I propose that Stanford’s argument is best understood as a broad modus ponens underdetermination argumen...

Providing a precise statement of their position has long been a central challenge facing the scientific realist. This paper draws some morals about how realism ought to be formulated from the renormalization group framework in high energy physics.