Underdetermination, realism, and truth approximation

Held (2011) attacks scientific realism via a criticism of the No-Miracles Argument based on the underdetermination of theories. In this paper we argue that the No-Miracles Argument, when deployed in conjunction with non-naive versions of realism, based on the view that verisimilitude or truth approximation is the main cognitive aim of scientific inquiry, survives Held’s criticism unscathed