Hasok Chang, "Realism for Realistic People: A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science (Cambridge UP, 2022)
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What is the central thesis of Hasok Chang’s “Realism for Realistic People”?
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figtor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Sarah Tyson, and Malcolm Keating. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Hasak Chang, Hans Rousing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. His new book Realism for Realistic People, a new pragmatist philosophy of science Is just out from Cambridge University Press. For a certain kind of standard realist, science aims at getting the absolute truth about the universe.
For Chang, this view is unrealistic because we have no way of judging whether we are getting at that truth. In his new book, Chang argues that we should understand scientific inquiry and its epistemic fruits. In terms of what we do to acquire, justify, and use scientific knowledge. Drawing on Dewey and other pragmatists, plus a Neo Kantian view of phenomena. Chiang affirms the basic realistic realist commitment to a mind independent world. But only in the sense that the world is mind framed by our concepts, not mind controlled. The aim of science, however, is operationally coherent active knowledge, not description of some inaccessible reality. Let's turn to the interview. Uh hello, Hasok Chang. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Thank you for having me.
I'm really uh really looking forward to talking about your new book, Realism for Real People. Um, before we get to the contents of the book itself, um Uh it's helpful to have a little bit of background, both about you and about the book, right? So could you tell us a bit about yourself as a philosopher? And then how this book came about.
Yeah, sure. Something I should say about My work in general is that It has been always on the boundary between the philosophy of science and the history of science. And I had come from doing physics as an undergraduate and got into philosophy because basically because physics wasn't what I thought it would be. Um whenever I would ask about something I was really excited about. My physics professor would Tell me well, that's a philosophical question. Meaning don't ask such things, just do your problems. Maybe when you grow up and become a real physicist you could ask about the meaning of things, but not yet. And I didn't wanna wait and I wasn't that interested in Just following science. In that way. Which is kind of what Tom Kuhn called normal science, right?
Anyway, so I went on to graduate school in philosophy.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central thesis of Hasok Chang’s “Realism for Realistic People”?
0:00–8:18
2
How does Chang distinguish his pragmatist view from traditional scientific realism?
8:18–16:42
3
What does Chang mean by “active knowledge” and how does it differ from propositional knowledge?
16:42–25:08
4
How is “operational coherence” defined and why is it crucial for scientific practice?
25:08–31:42
5
In what way does Chang reconceive truth as a matter of operational coherence rather than correspondence?
31:42–39:01
6
What is the “mind‑framed vs. mind‑controlled” distinction and how does it reshape realism?
39:01–47:28
7
Who are the “realistic people” Chang aims to address and why does this matter for public understanding of science?
47:28–54:36
8
What future research directions does Chang identify after publishing his book?
54:36–1:03:01
Speakers
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