Abstract Pragmatist philosophers of science (e.g., Chang 2016; 2022) often adjudicate realism debates by (1) deploying a unified ontological principle—that is, a unified rule for making ontological assertions—to all domains of empirical inquiry, and (2) comparing the ontological assertions made by realists and anti-realists to the unified principle. By considering modeling practices in evolutionary biology, I motivate an alternative approach. Pragmatists should localize ontological principles to particular ontological questions in particular domains of empirical inquiry and adjudicate between various realisms and anti-realisms in a radically piecemeal fashion.
Zachary J. Mayne (Mon,) studied this question.