Do Electrons Really Exist?

Do Electrons Really Exist?

Science has defined the nature of the world through an assortment of things that are observed in the physical world and those that are unobservable, improvable theories that explain the world. Electrons are unobservable. We cannot experience their existence with our own human senses. Do electrons really exist, or are they just useful fictions? Antirealists would explain that they do not exist because you cannot observe them. Realists would argue that electrons exist because they can be manipulated. With a close inspection of the arguments of antirealists, realists, and other philosophers of science, I believe that electrons do in fact exist.

Antirealism holds that a theory is acceptable to the extent that it is empirically adequate, and it is empirically adequate to the extent that what it says about certain observed phenomena is true. Van Fraassen, an antirealist, holds an empiricist attitude towards science in his work The Scientific Image. In his constructive empiricist approach he argues that when we accept a theory we do not have to go beyond what the theory says about the observables. "Acceptance of a theory involves a belief only that it is empirically adequate" (Scientific Image, Fraassen). With these criteria, one could assert that an electron does not exist. The theory of an electron is not empirically adequate since we cannot experience it with our senses. This philosophy is supported by Schlick's argument that the meaning of statement is its method of verification. As we cannot see the electron within the given, it must not exist. Van Fraassen's argument does not however go so far as to say that electrons do not exist. He only means to point out that from an antirealist approach science does not supply good enough empirical evidence to say that there are electrons in the world. Electrons will never be real until they become considered observable in the physical world. This is assuming that we encounter a community of individuals someday who have electron-detecting eyes. Fraassen states that all we can derive from theories with unobservables is good confirmation of what can be stated about the observables within the theories. Hempel would support this argument with the idea that empirical data counts for evidence for a theory and that overtime you can retest a theory to get a degree of confirmation. Overall antirealism views that the aim of science is not worried with wholly true theories. We do not need science to explain for us that electrons are real. Science only aims for empirically adequate theories. Electrons are not real in antirealism.

Realism holds that when a scientific theory is accepted most elements of the theory are taken as representing aspects of the world. Entities discussed within a theory are considered real. Scientific realism considers accepted theories to be wholly true. This includes the observables and the unobservables. The success of science is brought about by theories approaching truth. Therefore realists aim to accept theories as being approximately true if they provide the best explanation of a set of phenomena in the world. Ian Hacking, a realist, argues in his book, Representing and Intervening, the effect of experimentation is to create phenomena that do not exist naturally in the world. With these phenomena scientists learn more about the entities in the world by using one thing to act on another. He claims that if we can use one entity to interfere with another, then the former manipulated entity must exist. This argument supports an electron as a real entity (Representing and Intervening, Hacking). He asserts, "When we use an instrument to isolate the spin of an electron and affect a current with that spin, producing a novel result,

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