Realismo cientifico y ciencia real

Resumen

A distinction is made between real things in their ordinary sense as pragmata a -inherently linked to our living praxis- and in the technical, theologically inspired sense of so-called scientific realism. In the latter sense reality is supposed to be well-defined independently of human action and human thought, and yet to be adequately describable in human language. After pouring ridicule on this idea, the paper discusses some examples, mainly from gravitational physics, which show that in actual practice science seeks to understand reality in the ordinary (pragmatic) meaning of the word, not in the contrived meaning bestowed on it by medieval theologians and scientific realists.