Getting to Reality Through Perception: Peirce and Scientific Realism

Abstract

This paper explores the capacity of Peirce’s perceptual and realist theories to solve some of scientific realism’s main challenges. Although I will suggest that the problem of the underdetermination of scientific theories might not admit a Peircean solution (DE REGT,1999), I will contend that Peirce can provide innovative support for scientific realism by addressing some of its fundamental issues. My main hypothesis is that Peirce’s perceptual theory—and, particularly Aaron Wilson’s interpretation of this theory (WILSON, 2012)—can help us shed important light on the following questions: (i) how can we account for a mind-independent reality? (ii) how can we explain the success of science? and (iii) how can we account for the knowledge of unobservable entities? I will argue that Peirce offers insightful contributions to (i) and (ii), while only producing a weak argument for (iii).