Abstract

According to effective realism, scientific theories give us knowledge about the unobservable world, but not at the fundamental level. This view is supported by the well-received effective-field-theory (EFT) approach to high energy physics, according to which even our most successful physical theories are only applicable up to a certain energy scale and expected to break down beyond that. In this paper, I advance new challenges for effective realism and the EFT approach. I argue that effective quantum gravity (EQG) does not give us a realistic theory of spacetime even within its scope of validity. This also exposes a general interpretative dilemma faced by all EFTs concerning their indispensable references to classical spacetime beyond their scope of validity.