Abstract

In recent years, the position of effective realism, first proposed by Porter Williams in 2019, has generated much interest and debate in the philosophy physics. While supporters of the position view it as the most promising form of realism in the context of modern physics, critics have raised doubts whether the position deserves to be called a genuine scientific realist position. In this talk, I argue that there is a clear sense in which effective realism reaches beyond empiricism and therefore can be called a form of realism. Moreover, I demonstrate that no stronger form of scientific realism than effective realism is defensible in the context of contemporary physics. In the second part of the talk, however, I claim that effective realism is itself an effective concept: its range of applicability ends at the Planck scale, where realist commitment, if meaningful at all, needs to be of a fundamental realist kind. The talk is based on joint work with Michael Stöltzner