Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism (review)

Bunge’s project in Chasing Reality, he tells us, is the fulfillment of a lifelong quest to ‘update philosophy with the help of science, and to unmask unsound philosophy posing as science.’ The unsound philosophy posing as science is quickly identified as anti-realism, which includes any philosophical account that denies a reality independent of a perceiving subject. On Bunge’s list are the ‘phenomenalist’ philosophies of Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, as well as the logical empiricists, positivists, pragmatists (with the interesting exception of Peirce), phenomenologists, and constructivists. In contrast, Bunge advocates a remarkably comprehensive and ambitious ‘integral philosophical realism’ that embraces all branches of philosophy except logic. Naturally, it is impossible in just a few words to provide a thorough analysis of Bunge’s defence of his realism. In his particular critiques of historical positions, this might not be of great concern, since his treatment of the original texts and corresponding secondary literature is cursory at best. So, instead, I will try to trace the thread of his positive argument and note a concern.

Bunge calls his view ‘scientific hylorealism,’ which is the interdependent triad of realism, emergent materialism, and scientism. Scientism is the thesis that the best strategy for attaining the more objective, more accurate, and deepest truths about facts of any kind, natural or social, is the scientific method. Reality exists independently of us, and it is material, but not necessarily physical, since material reality includes, for instance, ‘such supra-physical material things as organisms and social systems.’ Mental properties are real (as long as they are located in the brain), as are dispositions, relations (space-time), and possibilities. All of these Bunge refers to as ‘transcendentals,’ since they ‘overreach’ experience. Nevertheless, because they lend to scientific explanation, they are not to be considered ‘otherworldly.’

Bunge eschews scientific explanation in terms of generalization and covering-laws for ‘mechanismic’ explanation. Scientific explanation captures the underlying mechanisms of reality by employing ‘inverse’ problem solving, or what we might call ‘abduction,’ from effects to causes. These hypotheses serve as ‘disciplined fictions [that] abide by the laws contained in an exact theory.’ The interdependence of realism, emergent materialism, and scientism are seen as allowing our abductive hypotheses to refer successfully to real and testable facts, even though they are fictions describing transcendental mechanisms that overreach experience.

That Bunge captures the notion that the interdependence of realism, emergent materialism, and scientism leads to far-reaching technological and theoretical advancements in the natural sciences is beyond question. It is a lot less clear exactly why we should think that scientism is true, insofar as scientific explanation enjoys a degree of privilege bordering on exclusivity, especially when it comes to explaining social and political reality or the reality of values. We can perhaps find Bunge’s answer in the following: ‘But what does “success” mean in science other than “truth?” The Nobel Prize is not awarded to saints for performing miracles; . . . It is only awarded to scientists who have “found” (discovered or invented) some important truths about a part or feature of reality.’ Bunge admits that the scientific skeptic will not be swayed by the argument that the success of scientific method warrants its degree of privilege. Perhaps, he also admits, a hermeneutic methodology might be employed to attempt to understand social or cultural reality in terms of meaningful behaviour (in terms of intentions and goals that condition and inform the social and cultural realities to be investigated), rather than to explain it reductively. But then Bunge states that to claim that this is a difference in method is false, ‘since cognitive neuroscience studies intentions as processes in the prefrontal cortex; social psychologists and sociologists use the scientific method to investigate goal-seeking behavior; and social technologists, such as management scientists, social workers, and legislators, attempt to steer behavior.’ My concern is that, even if intentions can be reductively explained as ‘processes in the prefrontal cortex,’ and such reduction achieves some success in regulating behaviour in social and political contexts, it does not also mean that...