Scientific Realism and the Natural World

Jacques Joseph Scientific Realism and the Natural World M.A. thesis Abstract The main topic of this work is the relation between the natural world and the world of the natural sciences, and furthermore the relation of both these worlds to our conception of an external reality "as it really is". The core of the work is rooted mainly in the Anglo-American analytical philosophy of science, namely the debate concerning scientific realism, with a section dedicated to Husserl's conception of the relation between the natural world and natural sciences (as described in his Krisis). The goal of this work is to show scientific realism as broken beyond repair, and to then offer an alternative. The problems that plague realism run deep into its roots, many of which it shares with its opponents, the new alternative theory therefore needs to be completely different. This work suggests the "Natural ontological attitude" (NOA) presented by Arthur Fine, a theory that tries to salvage the intuitions that made realism seem so attractive. NOA is then developped, using texts by W. V. O. Quine and D. Davidson, as a minimalistic metaphysics based strongly on language that still manages to provide a relation to an extra-linguistic reality