ABSTRACT
I try to clarify the important remaining substantive disagreements between so-called “scientific realists” and those whose resistance to such realism is motivated by historical considerations (such as the Pessimistic Induction or the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives) using what I call the Strategy of Historical Ostension. This strategy seeks to further flesh out the commitments of such historicist critics by ostensive appeal to the very same evidence those critics cite in support of their opposition. This strategy highlights the impressive heterogeneity of the ways in which different successful past scientific theories have proven to be (and contemporary scientific theories might turn out to be) “not even approximately true” and ultimately suggests how we might dispense with the contentious idiom of “approximate truth” altogether. It also suggests a natural response to the claim that non-realists have no choice but to regard the successes of our best scientific theories as miraculous.
