On The Argumentation Between The Scientific Realism And The Antirealism From Shapere's Rational Realism

From 70's of the 20th century, the historical scientific philosophy theory has initiated the argumentation between scientific realism and scientific antirealism. Afterwards, this argumentation expands gradually from the interior to exterior, becomes a significant argumentation focal point of the current Western scientific philosophy. The so-called scientific realism is to discuss the relations between the scientific theory and the reality in the scientific philosophy. Therefore, at the same time it must answer two questions: One is outside, the will of the people world, namely"reality"; the other is the relations between the scientific theory and the objective world. The scientific realism acknowledges that the object of scientific research is the objective existence; the mature science theory terminology can refer the entity. Its main representative figures are Sellars, Putnam, Shapere, Leplin and Harry and so on.The antirealism and the scientific realism are in sharp opposition, they deny the objective substantiality in scientific cognition, and"the theory entity"required in scientific theory, especially objective substantiality of the unobserved"the theory entity". It is acknowledged that the antirealism mainly has two kinds of traditions: namely the empiricism tradition and the constructivism tradition. The basic view of the empiricism tradition is that for observable phenomenon regarding the identical kind, the people may form the different theories, also these theories are equal with the same experience, but regarding unobservable phenomenon, the essence explanation is mutually contradictory. Constructivism believes that the scientific methodology relies on theory closely, the actual scientific method deeply relies on the theory, the world which the scientists study is constructed from their theory tradition; In the science history, the one after another model in logic is incommensurable; the evidence, the explanation and the theory standard in new theory are extremely different from those in old theory. The antirealism viewpoint can be classified into these two kinds of traditions. Various schools of antirealism can be summarized as Kuhn thought mainly emphasizing the model function,Feyerabend's"anarchism"methodology, the Larry Laodan's instrumentalism and Van Frraasen's constructive empiricism and so on.Along with the deepened argumentation and science development, especially the impact from the scientific ideological trends of postmodernism, encountering with the unprecedented difficulty, both sides have changed their original strong standpoints, retreated, and compromised to the mixed trend. Guo Guichun, the Chinese expert in scientific realism, considers that different from the argumentation between the former traditional realism and the antirealism, the divarication from the contemporary scientific realism with the antirealism is no longer about whether or not acknowledgement of existed objective world independent from the will of the people, or ontology question and so on in material first nature, but about the acknowledgment of world existence, acknowledgement of the perceptual experience provided for objective world information, acknowledgement of the science as the rational cause, acknowledgement of the progressiveness and success of science, acknowledgement of that under the premise of theory entity playing key role in the cognition process, to understand why the science can obtain success, approach the truth gradually, or the real existence of theory entity, or actuality of the scientific goal, so on in the divarication of significant epistemology . Therefore, carefully examining the scientific realism with the antirealism argumentation historic course, the focal point of argumentation, the method of argumentation, the standpoint of argumentation as well as the rationality of argumentation, thus it has become an extremely important question to appraise their significance in a new foundation, and explore the recent development basis and the trend on this foundation,.Under the background of the argumentation between the scientific realism and the antirealism, relying on the breakthrough of Shapere's rational realism, making use of documentation, comparison and comprehensive induction, this paper studies and analyzes the thought and influences of Shapere's rational realism. Finally it should be pointed out that re-examining the argumentation between the scientific realism and the antirealism, the new history wing represented by Shapere, leads the new historical principle to the scientific realism. He has enriched and perfected scientific realism content and to some content, diminished the antiscientific realism standpoint through putting forward series unique theories as creedalism, Domain of Information and truth view. He has not bounded himself in the traditional realism frame, only pursuing the simple ontology analysis, but took the scientific realism as methodology principle, has given explanation for one kind of rational realism science from the methodology. Therefore, by bringing honor to the rationality, persisting in reality, advocating union of rationality and reality, it provides the beneficial model for the defense of scientific realism from the traditional main body in the case of the epistemology and the methodology transformation, moreover also solves the bilateral argumentation to a reasonable trend.