Abstract
The debate on realism concerning science is one of the oldest and perennial topics in philosophy of science. Yet the debate has increasingly reached a stand-off with often diminished returns. In recent years there has been renewed attention to realism with an eye to re-assessing the nature of the commitment involved and associated assumptions. This symposium brings together the state of the art in this recent trend with an array of philosophical views that have been recently elaborated to address some of the shortcomings of traditional scientific realism: activist realism, perspectival realism, haptic realism and future-proof facts. Our aim is threefold: (1) to offer motivations for reconceiving realism in particular directions; (2) to highlight four different brands of reconceived realism in dialogue: what they share and where they part ways; and (3), most importantly, to spell out the rich rewards that this exercise of reconceiving realism brings along with it, in terms of how to think about truth, reality, pluralism and the history of science.
