• The first part of Okasha’s discussion (pp. 59-62) sets up the issue. The key ideas here are the distinction between scientific realism and instrumentalism (see pp. 59-60) and the distinction between instrumentalism and a more recent form of anti-realism (see p. 62).

• The second section of the chapter concerns a form of argument for realism that Okasha speaks of as the “no miracles” argument (pp. 62f), a response to that argument (pp. 63f), and a modification of the “no-miracles” argument made in reply to the response (pp. 64f). The article by Laudan concerns this exchange and pursues the ideas you’ll find in Okasha a bit further.

• In an article written a few years earlier than “Realism without the Real,” Laudan offered one of best-known responses to the “no-miracles” argument. In “Realism without the Real,” he describes this reponse briefly. (He labels it “the historical gambit,” p. 157, but it is more often called “the pessimistic induction.”) One example of the sort of modification of the “no-miracles” argument that Okasha mentions was suggested in a reply to Laudan’s original argument, and “Realism without the Real” is a reply to that reply.

[Both of these predecessors to “Realism without the Real” are on JSTOR if you are curious—see the references and links below. Although Laudan’s original article is fairly long, it is most often referred to for its examples of scientific theories that were once accepted but are now rejected, and that part of the article is fairly compact. It can be found primarily on pp. 26f and p. 33.]

• One of the values of “Realism without the Real” is that it sketches several varieties of realism, the one Laudan originally argued against (and that he describes here as “hard-core scientific realism,” pp. 156) and a pair of positions closely related to each other that correspond roughly to the sort of modified realism that Okasha mentions (these positions are described in §§2 and 3). Laudan does not regard the latter positions as true realism; but, whether or not they count as realism, they are certainly positions that someone might hold, so you should think how you would be inclined to choose among the following options: hard-core realism, one of the modified positions, or none of the above.