Empiricism vs. Scientific Realism: A Historical Survey of theDevelopments of These Two Approaches until the EarlyTwentieth Century

Scientific realism is the thesis that the claims of scientific theoriesabout the facts in the world are literally true. That the theoriessometimes even go beyond our sense data and experience in orderto give us an understanding of natural phenomena and their causes,and that if we accept a theory as true, we are also committed to theexistence of certain undetectable things as the causes of thosephenomena.Although scientific realism as an independent area in philosophy ofscience is almost recent, as a general idea it can be detectedthroughout the history of western thought where it meets withoppositions mainly coming from the empiricist quarter.Searching through the history of thought and focusing on scientificexplanation as the main goal of science, this paper shows thephilosophical roots of these two approaches as well as their gradualdevelopment since antiquity through intricate evolvement into moresophisticated and systematic forms which emerged almost whenphilosophy of science came to be known as an autonomous field,the period within which the dominant approach is scientific antirealism.The writer is therefore concerned with three majorphilosophers of science, Mach, Poincaré, and Duhem, emphasizingthe main features and trying to come into certain conclusions aboutthe two approaches at issue.