Realism Versus Surrealism

Abstract

Realism and surrealism claim, respectively, that a scientific theory is successful because it is true, and because the world operates as if it is true. Lyons (Philosophy of Science 70(5):891-901, 2003) criticizes realism and argues that surrealism is superior to realism. I reply that Lyons's criticisms against realism fail. I also attempt to establish the following two claims: (1) Realism and surrealism lead to a useful prescription and a useless prescription, respectively, on how to make an unsuccessful theory successful. (2) Realism and surrealism give the credit for the success of a theory to an appropriate factor and to an inappropriate factor, respectively. Finally, I point out that surrealism is vulnerable to my pessimistic induction (Park in Organon F 21(1):3-21, 2014a) against antirealism.