A confutation of convergent realism

This is not really a contextualism article at all. It is an empirical attack on a philosophical position called "convergent realism." You may not have known this, but there are philosophers who use empirical methods. Convergent realism is far and away the most widely held ontological perspective--though it is seldom thoroughly articulated and even less often questioned in any serious way. Convergent realism contains a variety of underlying assumptions. Loudan unpacks these assumptions. He then suggests that if the assumptions are correct, we should be able to find evidence of that in the historical record of science. What he finds instead are a variety of cases where the historical record violates the account underlying convergent realism. Loudan says not a word about referential theories of language or contextualism or behavior analysis. However, the well schooled reader will see the connection between Loudan's critique and a contextual behavioral account of science. You will find attached to the article my cheat sheet from Tom Nickles epistemology course that I took in grad school. I love this article. It is dense. You will want to get out your philosophy dictionary and keep it handy. This is the very first thing my grad students read in my graduate learning course. They wail and moan. I tell them this will put the ph in their phd.