Towards a Realist Philosophy of History argues for the radical—at least in contemporary historical theory—view that historians are by and large successful in their goal of providing accurate knowledge and understanding about the historical past. Adam Timmins provides a philosophical framework that supports this endeavor, as well as highlighting some of the issues with the "strong constructivist" accounts common in contemporary historical theory. Among other things, the book provides a realist construal of colligatory concepts, historiographical reference, and the use of narrative, as well as examining the mechanisms of historiographical progress. The work also provides some much-needed criticism of aspects of the strong constructivist position, such as the contemporary adoption of “irrealism” and the idealist implications of this, that has have yet failed to make their way into the existing literature. The book proves that historical theory has not “moved on” from the realism-idealism debate and that realism with regards to the products of historiography is still very much a live option.

An award-winning philosopher bridges the continental-analytic divide with an important contribution to the debate on the meaning of realism. Jocelyn Benoist argues for a philosophical point of view that prioritizes the concept of reality. The human mindÕs attitudes toward reality, he posits, both depend on reality and must navigate within it. Refusing the path of metaphysical realism, which would make reality an object of speculation in itself, independent of any reflection on our ways of approaching it or thinking about it, Benoist defends the idea of an intentionality placed in realityÑcontextualized. Intentionality is an essential part of any realist philosophical position; BenoistÕs innovation is to insist on looking to context to develop a renewed realism that draws conclusions from contemporary philosophy of language and applies them methodically to issues in the fields of metaphysics and the philosophy of the mind. ÒWhat there isÓÑthe traditional subject of metaphysicsÑcan be determined only in context. Benoist offers a sharp criticism of acontextual ontology and acontextual approaches to the mind and reality. At the same time, he opposes postmodern anti-realism and the semantic approach characteristic of classic analytic philosophy. Instead, Toward a Contextual Realism bridges the analytic-continental divide while providing the foundation for a radically contextualist philosophy of mind and metaphysics. ÒTo beÓ is to be in a context.

What does it mean for our understanding of history if we assume that everything is physical and that no immaterial entities, forces, or phenomena exist? A Materialist Philosophy of History: A Realist Antidote to Postmodernism examines the implications of a materialist worldview in contemporary philosophy of history. Materialism has wide-ranging consequences for historical research as well as for the credibility of various conceptions of the historical past. Branko Mitrović shows how these implications pertain both to the nature of social institutions and the capacities of historical figures to decide, act, acquire beliefs, and communicate and to the methodology of historical research and problems, such as the interpretation and the translation of historical documents. A materialist view also entails rejecting the view that forces such as culture, language, or society can construct physical reality or that the historical past is constructed through the work of the historian. This book examines these consequences and presents a comprehensive materialist perspective on historical research and the understanding of the historical past.

Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? In this book Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike.

Combining conceptual rigour and clarity of prose with historical erudition, this book shows how one of the standard issues of analytic philosophy, realism and anti-realism, has also been at the heart of continental philosophy.

In The Atlantic Realists, intellectual historian Matthew Specter offers a boldly revisionist interpretation of "realism," a prevalent stance in post-WWII US foreign policy and public discourse and the dominant international relations theory during the Cold War. Challenging the common view of realism as a set of universally binding truths about international affairs, Specter argues that its major features emerged from a century-long dialogue between American and German intellectuals beginning in the late nineteenth century. Specter uncovers an "Atlantic realist" tradition of reflection on the prerogatives of empire and the nature of power politics conditioned by fin de siècle imperial competition, two world wars, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Focusing on key figures in the evolution of realist thought, including Carl Schmitt, Hans Morgenthau, and Wilhelm Grewe, this book traces the development of the realist worldview over a century, dismantling myths about the national interest, Realpolitik, and the "art" of statesmanship.

This introduction to the philosophy of social science provides an original conception of the task and nature of social inquiry. Peter Manicas discusses the role of causality seen in the physical sciences and offers a reassessment of the problem of explanation from a realist perspective. He argues that the fundamental goal of theory in both the natural and social sciences is not, contrary to widespread opinion, prediction and control, or the explanation of events (including behaviour). Instead, theory aims to provide an understanding of the processes which, together, produce the contingent outcomes of experience. Offering a host of concrete illustrations and examples of critical ideas and issues, this accessible book will be of interest to students of the philosophy of social science, and social scientists from a range of disciplines.

What is science? -- Scientific inference -- Explanation in science -- Realism and anti-realism -- Scientific change and scientific revolutions -- Philosophical problems in physics, biology, and psychology -- Science and its critics.

In A Realist Metaphysics of Race: A Context-Sensitive, Short-Term Retentionist, Long-Term Revisionist Approach, Jeremy Pierce defends a social kind view of racial categories. On this view, the biological features we use to classify people racially do not make races natural kinds. Rather, races exist because of contingent social practices, single out certain groups of people as races, give them social importance, and allow us to name them as races. Pierce also identifies several kinds of context-sensitivity as central to how racial categorization works and argues that we need racial categories to identify problems in how our racial constructions are formed, including the harmful effects of racial constructions. Hence, rather than seeking to eliminate such categories, Pierce argues that we should also make efforts to change the conditions that generate their problematic elements, with an eye toward retaining only the unproblematic aspects. A Realist Metaphysics of Race contains insights relevant not just to professional philosophers in metaphysics, philosophy of race, social philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, but also to students and scholars working in sociology, biology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and political science.

Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. In this book, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science.