Tropic Realism and Knowledge As An Epistemic Property of False Beliefs

The critical scientific realism by I. Niiniluoto is one of the few concepts that speaks not only of scientific realism, but also of reality itself. Such an elements of the concept, like tropic realism – the minimal ontological realism (in the Putnam’s sense), stating that there is no single true description of reality, or the idea that the knowledge can be a subject of the analysis of false beliefs (by definition, truthlike beliefs do not have to be true) – are the best ways to illustrate how I. Niiniluoto understands the contemporary trend to imply vagueness into definitions of the main philosophical categories like “ontological object”, “truth value”, etc.
Reflections on the book: Niiniluoto I. Critical Scientific Realism. Oxford University Press, 1999.

Keywords: knowledge of the past, philosophy of archaeology, theory-ladenness of observation, P. Kosso.