El realismo científico de Ian Hacking: de los electrones a las enfermedades mentales transitorias.

María Laura  Martínez

doi:10.48160/18517072re22.449

Authors

María Laura Martínez Departamento de Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia, Instituto de Filosofía, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48160/18517072re22.449

Keywords:

scientific realism, intervention, make up people, looping effect

Abstract

In this article we pretend to work about the scientific realism sustained by Ian Hacking, following the way from Representing and Intervening, to Rewriting the Soul (1995), Mad Travelers (1998), The social construction of what? and Historical Ontology (2002).

Throughout this course, we will analyze the best known side of this philosopher. Namely, his report about the poorness of the philosophy of science due to its focus on theory and representation and the consequences it has had for the realism/ antirealism debate. On the other hand, we will draw on his proposal to emphasize the intervention, the experimentation, and his support of the realism of entities, mainly based on two arguments: intervention and coincidence.

In his last works, where he defines himself as a dynamic nominalist, we will see how through transient mental illnesses, he proposes to work in social sciences notions such as make up people –with which he tries to reflect the fitness among human beings and actions and its categorizations. Finally we analyze the notion of looping effect of human kinds, namely: the interactions between people and ways of classifying them and their behaviors.

After this brief course, we will analyze some of the valuable contributions of this philosopher, but we will also discuss other aspects of his thinking.

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