The Problem of Scientific Realism ed. by Edward A. MacKinnon (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 407 less reality now incarnate in time. The benefit of his book rests not only in the multiple suggestions for self-understanding but in the fact that he has made this epiphany in time more evident. Mention must also be made of Moffitt's poetry which is interspersed throughout, especially the " Dance of the God, " and " A Word to the Wise, " poems he wrote while still a Hindu. The Catholic University of America Wa8hington, D. 0. WILLIAM CENKNER, O.P. The Problem of Scientific Realism. Ed. by EDWARD A. MAcKINNON. New York: Appleton-Century-Crafts, 197~. Pp. 309. $4.95. This book of readings should be well received for a variety of reasons. Its organizing theme of scientific realism is both important in its own right and also of considerable contemporary interest, yet has not been anthologized to date. Further the material selected (from Aristotle, Newton, Carnap, Hempel, Nagel, Quine, Harris, Einstein, Sellars, Mac- ,Kinnon, Bunge, and Heelan) is well chosen to illustrate the dimensions of the problem, and a long, annotated bibliography provides easy access to further sources. More importantly, the lengthy Introduction (71 pages) is of considerable value and interest as a philosophical piece in itself. It would be quite desirable for all books of readings to make a similarly conscientious effort to set up the problems for the reader. Because the author calls on an enormous range of philosophical and scientific background, and also because he writes in very condensed style, the Introduction will be difficult reading for the neophyte. This however should enhance the book's value in the classroom since expansion on and critical evaluation of the material in the Introduction is clearly called for in such a setting. The first half of the Introduction is an historical survey of the fortunes of the notion of scientific realism· from· Aristotle to the present. This accomplishes two purposes. First, the editor shows that, because of changes in the history of science itself, earlier more naive versions of realism (e. g., Aristotle's causal realism and Newton's mechanistic realism) must give way to a critical realism of some sort. .Second, he also shows that any commitment to a realism is at least partially determined by prior views on the nature of knowledge. Thus ontology must be intimately associated with epistemology (which by the way is also very much in evidence as MacKinnon works out his own views later.) This brings us to the second half of the Introduction where MacKinnon outlines his views on scientific realism. He argues convincingly that 408 BOOK REVIEWS science as actually practised carries a commitment to a functional realism. But this is pre-critical. The main problem is how can one convert this to a post-critical realism. To make this jump the author employs a complex collage of views and methods from many philosophical sources but especially from analytic philosophy, from transcendental Thomism, and from W. Sellars. His basic conviction (derived from Sellars) is that that is existentially real which is postulated by a truly explanatory theory precisely because that is what makes the theory explanatory. Thus realism is to be critically established through the higher level theories of scien(!e. However, MacKinnon's presentation remains programmatic since he does not claim that there has yet been produced the type of transcendental metaphysics which he envisions as the required underpinning for a scientific realism. Is this program a viable one? This depends on how one judges the author's conception of truth (since his realism is a function of his epistemology). Ultimately his commitment to scientific realism hinges on his claim that as knowers we can identify the intentional absolute within the ever-present context of conceptual and linguistic relativity. This point, by the way, is made much more clearly in the author's earlier book Truth and Expression (New York: Newman Press, 1971). It is in this context that one should understand MacKinnon's point that those entities are real which are postulated by truly explanatory scientific theory. But this raises further problems. Precisely how is the intentional absolute grounded in scientific theories which are clearly changing in fundamental conceptual ways and not just by addition? MacKinnon...