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The Pessimistic Meta-Induction. A Response to Jacob Busch

Abstract Jacob Busch's, ‘Entity Realism Meets the Pessimistic Meta-Induction – The World is not Enough’ (2006) criticizes my discussion, in Realism and Truth (Devitt, Princeton University Press, 1997), of scientific realism in general and of the pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) in particular (1997). I start my response with a discussion of the problem of defining scientific realism. I then argue that Busch's criticisms contain two major mistakes. First, he is wrong to think that Bertolet showed my basic abductive argument for realism to be faulty. Second, in discussing PMI, Busch places the onus in the wrong place. It is up to the proponent of PMI to establish the truth of its premise and the soundness of its inference. I don't think that the proponent has accepted this onus. It is up to the realist to show only that the truth of the premise and the soundness of the inference have not been established. I claim to have accepted that onus.