I’m very sorry that, in the end, I still couldn’t finish writing it. The latter half of the references simply wouldn’t integrate at all, so I’ll still mainly be talking off the cuff… But I really don’t want to get tied down any further by this paper, so tomorrow I’ll just give it as a casual discussion, and then in a few weeks I’ll write a proper paper that really stands on firm ground and present that instead.
Media Realism—A View of Scientific Realism from Media Ontology
“Realism” is an ancient and complex philosophical theme, tangled up with concepts such as truth and being, and involving fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. The various claims philosophers have made in the name of “realism” may be mutually contradictory or even entirely unrelated, so much so that it is hard for us to summarize just what kind of position “realism” actually is. This article does not attempt a comprehensive review of the problem of realism; rather, it hopes to use the context of contemporary debates over realism to articulate a view from media ontology.
Nowadays, realism is less a position or theory than a banner. Traditional philosophers of science raise this banner again in order to fight against social constructivism and relativism. The main concern of so-called “scientific realism” is to defend the distinctive character of science.
Thus, discussion of scientific realism is not centered on reexamining and reflecting on key concepts such as “the real,” “truth,” and “being,” but instead centers on emphasizing the success of science.
The “core theme of the related debate is hypothetical inference”[1]—since science unfolds in the mode of hypothetical inference, the success of its inference can prove the truth of the hypothesis. Scientific realists generally believe that “our empirical knowledge can, on the basis of the explanatory success of theories, become the basis for believing in those theories.”
But even setting aside whether it is appropriate to regard “hypothetical inference” as the basic structure of science, there are still two problems here. First, what exactly is it that scientific theory “hypothesizes”? Second, how exactly is the “success” of scientific explanation determined?
Realists believe that scientific theory contains assumptions about various theoretical entities, such as electrons, atoms, energy, and so forth, and that the success of theory can make us trust these assumptions more—this trust is indeed reasonable enough. But what exactly do these “assumptions” mean? To posit the concept of “electron” in a theory—does that mean believing that “electrons are real”? According to instrumentalism, such a posit means nothing more than believing that “electrons are an appropriate tool”; the success of theory can make us trust these tools more, but it does not necessarily prove the existence of entities.
Moreover, “success” is likewise an ambiguous concept. In his textbook on philosophy of science, Alexander Bird lists five typical claims of scientific realists[quoted][2]:
(a) theories may be evaluated in terms of their truth or approximate truth;
(b) the proper aim of theories is truth or approximate truth;
(c) the success of theories is evidence supporting their truth;
(d) if theories are true, then the unobservable entities they posit really exist;
(e) if theories are true, then they explain observable phenomena.
We can see that, according to (a) and (b), theories aim at “truth” and are evaluated by their degree of approximation to truth; but according to (c) and (e), the degree to which theories approximate truth is proven by the success of their explanation of phenomena. In that case, the requirement of “approximate truth” can be entirely omitted here, and the logic in practice is simply this: theories are evaluated by the success of their explanations. So how is the success or failure of an explanation evaluated? Broadly speaking, the more phenomena it explains, and the better it explains them, the more successful it is. But “more” and “better” are still ambiguous standards. And once one admits that the success of science is in fact social, grounded in people’s actual degree of acceptance, then scientific realism and social constructivism are no different here—truth ultimately comes from people’s consensus and belief. Yet realists insist on the independence of truth, maintaining that people’s social consensus does not affect truth. This contradictory belief is like Calvinist faith: on the one hand, one believes that God’s election is predestined and cannot be altered by later effort; on the other hand, one also believes that the social success achieved through later effort can “prove” that one truly is among the elect.
But after all, realism is not merely a matter of faith; it is also a philosophical topic. So if the claims of “realism” are to be distinctive and substantively meaningful, it is not enough simply to praise science’s aim of seeking truth and its actual success. We must probe deeply into the key concepts involved above: what exactly does it mean to say that scientific theory assumes the reality of electrons? What exactly does it mean to say that scientific activity pursues truth?
I will present a realist view from media ontology; we might call it “media realism.” This view still seeks to uphold the reality of scientific concepts, the objectivity of scientific explanation, and science’s pursuit of truth, but it requires a re-interpretation of the meaning of “reality.”
Media Theory or Instrumentalism?
“Media realism” seems like a contradictory concept. We know that “instrumentalism” is almost synonymous with “anti-realism,” and the concept of “media” is close to that of “tool”; we can regard media as a broad sense of tool, and likewise regard tools as a broad sense of media. The reason I use the word media is that, relative to concepts such as technology or implements, it more strongly highlights meanings such as “between…,” “through…,” and “presented to…”; what we need to emphasize is precisely this kind of intermediary guiding concept. In other words, what the concept of media denotes is not the tool as a material object, but the tool as intermediary, as something “looked through.” Such a pierced-through existence seems like something not real enough. So how can the concept of media be made coherent with “realism”?
Replacing tools with media can prompt us to notice that media as media precisely entails accessibility: a mediation is always also a mode of access, and any mode of access is always also manifested as some form of mediation. It is not that media block communication (interruption is also a mode of communication), but rather that media produce communication. In other words, when we say that the theoretical term “electron” is a successful tool (medium), that means it really does successfully guide us toward something. The issue is not whether the meaning of theoretical terms is instrumental or medial; the issue is where exactly they guide us. If one says these terms are merely rhetorical tools set up for sophistry and deception, then such “instrumentalism” is indeed anti-realist. But if one says these terms are tools for indicating certain “things,” then such “instrumentalism” may still be realist.
It should be noted that we are first of all acknowledging that theoretical terms are medial, that they exist as tools of indication; this view differs from the usual analytic-philosophical approach. Scientific realists of course also acknowledge that terms and concepts are first of all humanly posited, words used by people—no one would deny that the reason “electron” is not called “dumpling” is a social matter. But the key point is that analytic philosophy does not understand the relation between concepts and what they designate in terms of a medial relation of “guidance,” but rather in terms of what is called “reference.” This referential relation is understood as fixed and one-to-one: concepts function like labels hanging on nails, and the ironclad things behind these concepts are “reality.” Yet the relation of “guidance” does not require such a solid picture of reality. Concepts, rather than functioning like labels, are more like signposts, and the “real world” does not stand before us like a sheet of iron; it is right beneath our feet, where we stand. In this way, we can still say that some guidances are “true” and others “false,” but this truthfulness does not mean that what is pointed to must be some sharply bounded object, still less that such guidance must be an absolute one-to-one correspondence.
In addition, when we say that some guidances are true or false, we are in fact talking about the “guidance” itself. In the view of media ontology, whether something is real or not is not a property of the “object,” but rather of the mode in which the object presents itself. As Heidegger said, in a certain sense, “reality means precisely non-objectness”[quoted][3].
In a famous passage from Kant （What Is Going On with Kant’s Hundred Thalers?）, he says: “The actual contains no more than the merely possible. A hundred actual thalers contain not the slightest bit more than a hundred possible thalers. … But in my state of possession, a hundred actual thalers have more content than the mere concept of them (that is, than the concept of their possibility). For, although in relation to my concept the object is not contained in the least in its actuality, but is only added to my concept synthetically (which is a determination of my state), yet through this existence outside my concept, the supposed hundred thalers are not increased in the least.”[4] Kant’s related discussion has been narrowly interpreted by analytic philosophy as “existence is not a predicate,” and if I make a similarly narrow interpretation here, then what this example emphasizes is precisely that actuality does not belong to “thalers” but to “me” as a state. To say that those hundred thalers “are actual” really means: “I really do have” those hundred thalers. Reality is a relation between me and the object.
Scientific realists, by contrast, often emphasize the “independence” of realism, claiming that things such as electrons not only “exist,” but in particular that their existence is “independent” of the human mind and human sensation.[5] But we can see that “reality” precisely means a certain mode of relation between the object and us,
Back to Common-Sense Realism
So, what kind of mode of presentation is “real”? We should first clarify the concept of “reality” from everyday notions.
Starting from everyday notions is not the exclusive privilege of phenomenology-ontology. In fact, scientific realism also starts from naive realism or common-sense realism. For example, Michael Devitt thinks: “I start from common-sense realism because, obviously, anyone who rejects it will reject scientific realism: if one doubts the independent existence of observable things, one will certainly doubt the independent existence of unobservable things.”[6] Putnam and some other theorists also believe that “electrons exist in the same sense that chairs exist; the statement ‘there is an electron flowing through the wire’ can be objectively true in the same sense that the statement ‘there is a chair in this room’ can be true.”[7]
But the problem is that the greatest threat to naive realism does not come from constructivists or even skeptics; it comes precisely from “scientific realism.” Descartes doubted his belief that he was sitting by the fire, but in the end Descartes did not deny the reality of the fire. Modern science, however, truly denied people’s ancient beliefs about reality: for example, people had always believed that “fire” was a real thing, even the most basic reality (the four elements, the five phases). Yet modern science tells you that fire is not an entity; fire is merely the phenomenon of an intense chemical reaction that emits light and heat. Because the light emitted by certain reactions happens to fall within the visible spectrum, it seems to the human eye as though there really is something called “fire” there, but in fact there is no such independent thing. The “sense of reality” of fire depends on human sensory capacities. As for the overturning of naive pictures of reality by relativity and quantum mechanics, that goes without saying.
Scientific realism, though it grounds the concept of “reality” in everyday understanding, does not reconstruct the fissure between modern science and the lifeworld. In fact, scientific realism identifies “everyday experience” from a certain mathematized perspective. From this perspective, tables and chairs are “real” because they can serve as clear, visible, sharply bounded objects that we can quietly behold without interacting or entangling with them. Scientific realism is thus an extension of naive realism: it believes that scientific concepts such as electrons and atoms, like tables and chairs, simply “sit there quietly.”
Media ontology likewise holds that electrons and atoms are “just as real” as tables and chairs. But at bottom, our understanding of tables and chairs is completely different.
Why is a chair real? Because we can see its clear spatial outline? But we can clearly see chairs in pictures, in mirrors, and on television, yet we regard them as images, virtual images, or moving images, not as real chairs. A mere side-view image is not enough to present reality.
Analytic philosophy often understands a thing as the sum of sense-data: for example, we can see the outline of a chair, see its color, view its other side from a different angle, and also touch it. The various items of sense-data obtained from different perspectives and sides add up to our vivid experience of a truly real chair. That is indeed not wrong, but the problem is: how are these so-called “sense-data” even possible to “add up”? How are they even possible to be “put together”? Why do we feel “a chair,” rather than a chaotic “manifold”?
In fact, it is not because we first see this side, that side, and this tactile impression and that auditory impression, and then add them together to make up a chair. The actual situation is that we first see a chair, and only then can we analyze its various sides. The sense impressions of the various sides are already integrated at a more originary level. But this integration is not a priori, or necessary. Someone unfamiliar with chairs may find it hard to take the chair’s different sides as the same thing, and may not know how to touch the chair they see. It is precisely within a given environment, within a network where various media are divided and linked, mutually guiding one another, that the chair occupies a position. The chair presents itself in some full and rich way within a certain environment; that is what is called real. If we abstract it away from its situation, and leave an isolated subject facing an isolated object, then the chair as object is an abstract, imagined chair, not a “real” chair.
Back to Kant’s thalers: compared with a chair, money is a subtler thing. When we say that this banknote is “real,” what do we mean? Precisely that it can be “used.” Money in a photograph, although objectively visible and sharply outlined, is nevertheless “fake.” By contrast, money on a credit card cannot be seen or touched, yet it is real enough. We can see that the reality of money depends on your state of possession and use, and depends on the recognition and order of the entire society. The same is true of concepts such as chairs and tables: a chair that can be seen but not sat on is not a real chair.
The existence of “electrons” is similar to that of chairs. The fundamental issue is not whether they have a sharply defined boundary, or which fixed perceptible properties they have, but rather the relation in which they are entangled with the environment in which they exist.
Like “chairs,” electrons can only be spoken of as real within the appropriate environment. For example, faced with the pattern displayed in a cloud chamber, the scientist says, “There is an electron here.” Such an expression, perhaps like saying “I still have a hundred yuan” while looking at the numbers displayed on an electronic screen, does indeed mean that there “really” is an electron there, that there “really” is a hundred yuan there. To take a certain mode of presentation of electrons as electrons, just as to take a certain mode of presentation of chairs or money as chairs or money, requires more or less learning and training, and only within the corresponding context can they be seen. Other people, if they lack training or context, may look at the same image and only be able to infer the existence of an electron through inspection and reasoning; still others may, through the scientist’s guidance, take it as an electron. It is much like how a fruit grower may be able to see a peach tree at a glance, while another amateur botanist may identify the peach tree by carefully distinguishing its branches and leaves, and a tourist may learn from the sign hanging on the tree that it is a peach tree, and so on.
An analytic philosopher might say: first there exists that objectively real peach tree, and then different people receive different images of it. But in media ontology, it is true that there first is an objectively real peach tree “there,” but where exactly is it “there”? In a dreamlike illusion? In a mathematical construction? Where is it first situated before it becomes “real”? It must be in the world, and this world is precisely the world in which fruit growers, botanists, tourists, and so on exist, the world of human coexistence and mutual relations. So yes, there is indeed “first a peach tree there,” but at the same time there are also already fruit growers, botanists, and so on, and they too are already in the world. Within this shared background, different encounters and linkages occur.
Of course, in everyday circumstances, the reality of things does not present itself conspicuously. When we sit in a chair, we do not think, “Is there really a chair here?” Generally speaking, the reality of a “chair” precisely presents itself in the interruption of its guiding function, in the interruption of handling and use. For example, in lack, in boredom, and so on—when I am tired from standing and need to sit down, or when I have been sitting too long, the reality of the chair becomes manifest. Especially when the chair develops a “fault,” its reality becomes most conspicuous; at such times, the chair comes closest to an isolated object quietly contemplated. But as our activity of adjusting or searching for the cause of the faulty chair unfolds, the chair’s true essence may also be revealed—we first take the strategy of analytic philosophy, beholding this chair objectually, calmly, and objectively, analyzing its parts. But then—if the problem still has not been solved—we may at any moment leave this isolated object and begin searching in the surrounding world, for example: perhaps the floor is uneven? Or is there some issue with my thigh? Or did someone just play a trick on me? Or is it actually just my imagination? … The search for the cause of the chair’s malfunction may draw in anything whatsoever, even the reality of the entire world—if, after all kinds of fussing around, no cause can be found, you may well ask: am I dreaming? My search will move far away from this chair, yet it will always revolve around this chair, because what has malfunctioned is indeed “it.” This search activity hints at the essential existence of the chair—it is not this sharply bounded object, but a node that contains the entire structure of the world.
The same is true in scientific reflection: if in some experiment or theory “electron” gives rise to a problem, scientists will never simply stare at that “electron existing independently of the human mind” and contemplate it; they will check the functioning of the experimental apparatus, check their observational records and inferential calculations, and even check the entire scientific theory. There simply will not be such a thing as an independent “problem of the electron.” Does this mean that the electron is not real, but merely a tool linking various devices and various theories? Yes, it is precisely such a central medium—but precisely for that reason, it is real. The more universal something is, the more broadly it can establish connections, the more likely it may also be something that lacks a definite sensory outline, much like “money”: it can play a certain pivotal role in social life, yet it is something without a specific sensible shape. Of course, in the sense of lacking a fixed form, we can call it “virtual currency,” but this “virtual” is not the same thing as “subjectively and arbitrarily invented.”
Whether electrons are real or not, just as whether chairs and money really exist, is an objective matter. But here, what is called “objective” is not “God’s-eye view,” but other people’s views. What “realism” should uphold is that what is called real exists actually in the world. And the “world” in which such things as electrons and chairs actually exist is precisely “our” world, not God’s world.
[1] Newton-Smith, A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Shanghai Scientific and Technical Education Publishing House, 2006, p. 473.
[2] Alexander Bird, Philosophy of Science, trans. Jia Yulin and Rong Xiaoxue, Renmin University of China Press, 2008, p. 121.
[3] Introduction to the History of the Concept of Time, p. 267.
[4] [B627]
[5] Michael Devitt: REALISM/ANTI-REALISM. See The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science (Routledge Philosophy Companions) by Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd, Publisher: Routledge 2008.
[6] Michael Devitt: REALISM/ANTI-REALISM. See The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science (Routledge Philosophy Companions) by Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd, Publisher: Routledge 2008.
[7] Shu Weiguang and Qiu Renzong, eds., Book Reviews of Contemporary Western Philosophy of Science (2nd ed.), Renmin University of China Press, 2007, p. 249.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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