科学实在论（scientific realism）是对世界的一种看法、理解。在最广泛的意义上，它认为科学所描述的世界，就是真实的世界，亦因而完全独立于人们对世界的个人理解。在科学哲学中，科学实在论经常被描述为回应「科学的成就应当如何解释？」的答案。科学理论中，有时会毫不含糊地提及到一些人类仍然未能够透过观察来确认其存在的东西；在辩论科学的成就到底涉及些甚么时，一个主要焦点就是这些无法观察到的实体有甚么角色。跟工具主义相反，一般来说，科学实在论者认为可以对无法观察到的实体作出可靠的推论（亦即是，推论所带出的主张和无法观察到的实体在存在性上有相同地位）。

Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world as it is, independent of what it might be taken to be. Within philosophy of science, it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The debate over the success of science in this context centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make valid claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables, as opposed to instrumentalism.