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  1. Introduction: Structuralists of the world unite.James Ladyman - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 74:1-3.
    Key arguments and claims in Steven French's The Structure of the World are articulated and assessed. Differences between different forms of ontic structural realism are articulated, and some problems raised for some aspects of French's version.
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  • Structures and Structural Realism.Décio Krause - 2003 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 13 (1):113-126.
    The ‘ontic’ form of structural realism , roughly speaking, admits a complete elimination of the objects in the discourse of scientific theories, leaving us with structures only. As put by the defenders of such a claim, the idea is that all there is are structures and, if the relevant structures are to be set-theoretical constructs , as it has also been claimed, then the relations which appear in such structures should be taken to be ‘relations without the relata’. As far (...)
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  • Perspectivismo na filosofia da ciência: um estudo de caso na física quântica / Perspectivism in philosophy of science: a case-study in quantum physics.Décio Krause & Jonas Rafael Becker Arenhart - 2013 - Scientiae Studia 11 (1):159-183.
    PORTUGUESE: Neste artigo, apresentaremos uma visão particular do desenvolvimento de teorias científicas que denominamos (inspirados em Ortega y Gasset) "perspectivismo". Discutiremos como, através desse enfoque, é possível compatibilizar diversas descrições aparentemente distintas e incompatíveis de uma suposta realidade que se investiga. Fazemos isso distinguindo entre a "realidade" (R) e a "descrição empírica da realidade" (Re). Aceitando que podemos ter diversas descrições empíricas de uma mesma realidade, discutimos o caso particular em que esse esquema é utilizado nos debates atuais acerca da (...)
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  • Ramsey sentences, structural realism and trivial realization.Pierre Cruse - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 36 (3):557-576.
    Several recent authors identify structural realism about scientific theories with the claim that the content of a scientific theory is expressible using its Ramsey sentence. Many of these authors have also argued that so understood, the view collapses into empiricist anti-realism, since an argument originally proposed by Max Newman in a review of Bertrand Russell’s The analysis of matter demonstrates that Ramsey sentences are trivially satisfied, and cannot make any significant claims about unobservables. In this paper I argue against both (...)
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  • The Conceptual Basis and Empirical Grounds of Ontic Structural Realism存在的構造実在論の概念的基礎と経験的根拠存在的構造実在論の概念的基礎と経験的根拠.Naoaki Kitamura & Kohei Morita - 2019 - Kagaku Tetsugaku 52 (1):1-22.
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  • On structural accounts of model-explanations.Martin King - 2016 - Synthese 193 (9):2761-2778.
    The focus in the literature on scientific explanation has shifted in recent years towards model-based approaches. In recent work, Alisa Bokulich has argued that idealization has a central role to play in explanation. Bokulich claims that certain highly-idealized, structural models can be explanatory, even though they are not considered explanatory by causal, mechanistic, or covering law accounts of explanation. This paper focuses on Bokulich’s account in order to make the more general claim that there are problems with maintaining that a (...)
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  • Bayesian realism and structural representation.Alex Kiefer & Jakob Hohwy - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e199.
    We challenge Bruineberg et al's view that Markov blankets are illicitly reified when used to describe organismic boundaries. We do this both on general methodological grounds, where we appeal to a form of structural realism derived from Bayesian cognitive science to dissolve the problem, and by rebutting specific arguments in the target article.
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  • From scientific structuralism to transcendental structuralism.Patricia Kauark-Leite & Ronaldo Penna Neves - 2016 - Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 57 (135):759-780.
    ABSTRACT In the current debate between scientific realism and empiricism, both sides seem to embrace some sort of structuralism as an important component of their descriptions of science. The structural realism is generally presented in two versions: one ontic and the other epistemic. It has been argued that that epistemic structural realism is close, if not identical, to a Kantian approach. We aim to show that this is not the case, since ESR, being fundamentally a realist position, cannot be fully (...)
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  • Scientific Structuralism: Presentation and Representation.Katherine Brading & Elaine Landry - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):571-581.
    This paper explores varieties of scientific structuralism. Central to our investigation is the notion of `shared structure'. We begin with a description of mathematical structuralism and use this to point out analogies and disanalogies with scientific structuralism. Our particular focus is the semantic structuralist's attempt to use the notion of shared structure to account for the theory-world connection, this use being crucially important to both the contemporary structural empiricist and realist. We show why minimal scientific structuralism is, at the very (...)
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  • Ontic Structuralism and the Symmetries of Particle Physics.Aharon Kantorovich - 2009 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 40 (1):73-84.
    According to structural realism, in mature science there is structural continuity along theoretical change. A major counterexample to this thesis is the transition from the Eightfold Way to the Standard Model in particle physics. Nevertheless, the notion of structure is significantly important in comprehending the theoretical picture of particle physics, where particles change and undergo transmutations, while the only thing which remains unchanged is the basic structure, i.e. the symmetry group which controls the transmutations. This kind of view agrees with (...)
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  • J. Ladyman, D. Dennett and E.J. Lowe: How the electron exists.Н. В Головко - 2022 - Siberian Journal of Philosophy 20 (2):19-42.
    The paper aims to answer the question: «How does an electron exist at the beginning of the 21st century?» from the point of view of the general logic of the philosophy of science discourse, taking into account con­temporary philosophical concepts that explain what an «electron» is, and in what sense we could talk about the «existence» of such objects in the first quarter of the 21st century. A good concept of the existence of an object postulated by a successful scientific (...)
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  • Three Kinds of Arguments for Panpsychism.Jacek Jarocki - 2024 - Acta Analytica 39 (2):379-398.
    Panpsychism may be roughly defined as a view that at least some of the properties constituting the fundamental level of reality are mental or proto-mental. Despite its long history, it has been revived in recent discussions as a solution to the problems raised by the mind, especially to the so-called hard problem of consciousness. Contemporary panpsychism differs significantly from incarnations known from the history of philosophy mainly due to the fact that the former is often combined with so-called Russellian monism. (...)
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  • Poincaré’s aesthetics of science.Milena Ivanova - 2017 - Synthese 194 (7):2581-2594.
    This paper offers a systematic analysis of Poincaré’s understanding of beauty in science. In particular, the paper examines the epistemic significance Poincaré attributes to aesthetic judgement by reconstructing and analysing his arguments on simplicity and unity in science. I offer a consistent reconstruction of Poincaré’s account and show that for Poincaré simplicity and unity are regulative principles, linked to the aim of science—that of achieving understanding of how phenomena relate. I show how Poincaré’s account of beauty in science can be (...)
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  • Friedman’s Relativised A Priori and Structural Realism: In Search of Compatibility.Milena Ivanova - 2011 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (1):23-37.
    In this article I discuss a recent argument due to Dan McArthur, who suggests that the charge that Michael Friedman’s relativised a priori leads to irrationality in theory change can be avoided by adopting structural realism. I provide several arguments to show that the conjunction of Friedman’s relativised a priori with structural realism cannot make the former avoid the charge of irrationality. I also explore the extent to which Friedman’s view and structural realism are compatible, a presupposition of McArthur’s argument. (...)
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  • Did Perrin’s Experiments Convert Poincaré to Scientific Realism?Milena Ivanova - 2013 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 3 (1):1-19.
    In this paper I argue that Poincaré’s acceptance of the atom does not indicate a shift from instrumentalism to scientific realism. I examine the implications of Poincaré’s acceptance of the existence of the atom for our current understanding of his philosophy of science. Specifically, how can we understand Poincaré’s acceptance of the atom in structural realist terms? I examine his 1912 paper carefully and suggest that it does not entail scientific realism in the sense of acceptance of the fundamental existence (...)
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  • Structural Realism for Secondary Qualities.Alistair M. C. Isaac - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):481-510.
    This paper outlines and defends a novel position in the color realism debate, namely structural realism. This position is novel in that it dissociates the veridicality of color attributions from the claim that physical objects are themselves colored. Thus, it is realist about color in both the semantic and epistemic senses, but not the ontic sense. The generality of this position is demonstrated by applying it to other “secondary qualities,” including heat, musical pitch, and odor. The basic argument proceeds by (...)
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  • Realism without tears II: The structuralist legacy of sensory physiology.Alistair M. C. Isaac - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 79 (C):15-29.
    This paper examines the implications of the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies for contemporary philosophy and psychology. Part I analyzed Johannes Peter Muller’s canonical formulation of the Doctrine, arguing that it follows from empirical results combined with methodological principles. Here, I argue that these methodological principles remain valid in psychology today, consequently, any naturalistic philosophy of perception must accept the Doctrine’s skeptical conclusion, that the qualities of our perceptual experience are not determined by, and thus do not reveal the nature (...)
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  • Comparative success and empirical progress without approximate truth.Jonathon Hricko - 2023 - Synthese 201 (6):1-22.
    This paper argues against a particular version of the inference from the success of a scientific theory to the claim that the theory must be approximately true to some extent. The kind of success at issue is comparative, where one theory is more empirically successful than its rival if that theory predicts phenomena that are inexplicable or anomalous according to its rival. A theory that exhibits this kind of comparative success can be seen as thereby achieving empirical progress over its (...)
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  • Having an interpretation. [REVIEW]Leon Horsten - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 150 (3):449 - 459.
    I investigate what it means to have an interpretation of our language, how we manage to bestow a determinate interpretation to our utterances, and to which extent our interpretation of the world is determinate. All this is done in dialogue with van Fraassen's insightful discussion of Putnam's model-theoretic argument and of scientific structuralism.
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  • Quasi-set theory: a formal approach to a quantum ontology of properties.Federico Holik, Juan Pablo Jorge, Décio Krause & Olimpia Lombardi - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-26.
    In previous works, an ontology of properties for quantum mechanics has been proposed, according to which quantum systems are bundles of properties with no principle of individuality. The aim of the present article is to show that, since quasi-set theory is particularly suited for dealing with aggregates of items that do not belong to the traditional category of individual, it supplies an adequate meta-language to speak of the proposed ontology of properties and its structure.
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  • Poincaré’s Radical Ontology.Justin P. Holder - 2023 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (1):151-179.
    I present an exegesis of Henri Poincaré’s metaphysical position in three key essays within his book The Value of Science. In doing so, I argue for three theses: (a) that Poincaré’s metaphysical position in these sources is incompatible with his metaphysical position in his earlier book Science and Hypothesis; (b) that the phenomenological relationism defended by Poincaré in these sources is not a form of structural realism but rather a structuralist form of empiricism and (by design) has no greater metaphysical (...)
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  • Mathematical representation: playing a role.Kate Hodesdon - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (3):769-782.
    The primary justification for mathematical structuralism is its capacity to explain two observations about mathematical objects, typically natural numbers. Non-eliminative structuralism attributes these features to the particular ontology of mathematics. I argue that attributing the features to an ontology of structural objects conflicts with claims often made by structuralists to the effect that their structuralist theses are versions of Quine’s ontological relativity or Putnam’s internal realism. I describe and argue for an alternative explanation for these features which instead explains the (...)
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  • Relativity and Equivalence in Hilbert Space: A Principle-Theory Approach to the Aharonov–Bohm Effect.Guy Hetzroni - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (2):120-135.
    This paper formulates generalized versions of the general principle of relativity and of the principle of equivalence that can be applied to general abstract spaces. It is shown that when the principles are applied to the Hilbert space of a quantum particle, its law of coupling to electromagnetic fields is obtained. It is suggested to understand the Aharonov-Bohm effect in light of these principles, and the implications for some related foundational controversies are discussed.
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  • Subatomic Particles, Epistemic Stances, and Kantian Antinomies.Tobias Henschen - forthcoming - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie:1-22.
    In Scientific Ontology, Chakravartty diagnoses a “dramatic conflict” between empiricism and metaphysics and aims to overcome that conflict by opting for a modern-day variant of Pyrrhonism, i.e. by appreciating the equal strength of the arguments for and against the empiricist and metaphysical positions, and by achieving tranquility by suspending judgment or remaining speechless in the face of that isostheneia. In this paper, I want to argue that instead of remaining speechless in the face of the isostheneia of the arguments for (...)
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  • Physicists’ views on scientific realism.Céline Henne, Hannah Tomczyk & Christoph Sperber - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (1):1-27.
    Do physicists believe that general relativity is true, and that electrons and phonons exist, and if so, in what sense? To what extent does the spectrum of positions among physicists correspond to philosophical positions like scientific realism, instrumentalism, or perspectivism? Does agreement with these positions correlate with demographic factors, and are realist physicists more likely to support research projects purely aimed at increasing knowledge? We conducted a questionnaire study to scrutinize the philosophical stances of physicists. We received responses from 384 (...)
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  • Book Forum.Leah Henderson - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 98 (C):4-6.
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  • Category Free Category Theory and Its Philosophical Implications.Michael Heller - 2016 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 25 (4):447-459.
    There exists a dispute in philosophy, going back at least to Leibniz, whether is it possible to view the world as a network of relations and relations between relations with the role of objects, between which these relations hold, entirely eliminated. Category theory seems to be the correct mathematical theory for clarifying conceptual possibilities in this respect. In this theory, objects acquire their identity either by definition, when in defining category we postulate the existence of objects, or formally by the (...)
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  • Science as a Guide to Metaphysics?Katherine Hawley - 2006 - Synthese 149 (3):451-470.
    Analytic metaphysics is in resurgence; there is renewed and vigorous interest in topics such as time, causation, persistence, parthood and possible worlds. We who share this interest often pay lip-service to the idea that metaphysics should be informed by modern science; some take this duty very seriously.2 But there is also a widespread suspicion that science cannot really contribute to metaphysics, and that scientific findings grossly underdetermine metaphysical claims. For some, this prompts the thought ‘so much the worse for metaphysics’; (...)
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  • How to Split a Theory: Defending Selective Realism and Convergence without Proximity.David Harker - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1):79-106.
    The most influential arguments for scientific realism remain centrally concerned with an inference from scientific success to the approximate truth of successful theories. Recently, however, and in response to antirealists' objections from radical discontinuity within the history of science, the arguments have been refined. Rather than target entire theories, realists narrow their commitments to only certain parts of theories. Despite an initial plausibility, the selective realist strategy faces significant challenges. In this article, I outline four prerequisites for a successful selective (...)
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  • Foundations of Contemporary Revealed Preference Theory.D. Wade Hands - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (5):1081-1108.
    This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how the effectiveness of the critique depends on the particular (...)
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  • What Scientific Theories Could Not Be.Hans Halvorson - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (2):183-206.
    According to the semantic view of scientific theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view -- if taken seriously as a formal explication -- leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are truly distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are truly equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical relations, such as embeddability of one theory into another. The untenability of the semantic view -- as currently formulated -- threatens to (...)
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  • Symmetric and asymmetric theories of time.Vincent Grandjean - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):14403-14426.
    There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the traditional way of defining the A-theories of time. One reason is that these definitions rest on an ontological question—‘Do the future and the past exist?’—to which no non-speculative answer can be provided. Another reason is that these definitions fail to distinguish between various A-theories of time at all times and, therefore, cannot be regarded as essential to them. In the present paper, I make a fresh start in the debate, by introducing two (...)
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  • Pluralist structural realism: The best of both worlds?David Glick - 2019 - Synthese 198 (5):4145-4166.
    Worrall :99–124, 1989) famously claimed that structural realism is the best of both worlds; it enables one to endorse the best arguments for scientific realism and antirealism. In this paper, I argue that structural realism also enables one to combine two other seemingly inconsistent positions: realism and pluralism. Indeed, the very features which form the basis of the structural realist’s reply to the problem of theory change may be applied synchronically to allow for a pluralist structural realism. The resulting position (...)
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  • Generalism and the Metaphysics of Ontic Structural Realism.David Glick - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:axy008.
    Ontic structural realism (OSR) claims that all there is to the world is structure. But how can this slogan be turned into a worked-out metaphysics? Here I consider one potential answer: a metaphysical framework known as generalism (Dasgupta, 2009, 2016). According to the generalist, the most fundamental description of the world is not given in terms of individuals bearing properties, but rather, general facts about which states of affairs obtain. However, I contend that despite several apparent similarities between the positions, (...)
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  • Generalism and the Metaphysics of Ontic Structural Realism.David Glick - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2):751-772.
    Ontic structural realism claims that all there is to the world is structure. But how can this slogan be turned into a worked-out metaphysics? Here I consider one potential answer: a metaphysical framework known as ‘generalism’. According to the generalist, the most fundamental description of the world is not given in terms of individuals bearing properties, but rather, general facts about which states of affairs obtain. However, I contend that despite several apparent similarities between the positions, generalism is unable to (...)
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  • A philosophical analysis of the emergence of language.Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi & Antonio Benítez-Burraco - 2024 - Theoria 90 (1):30-55.
    There is a research programme in linguistics that is founded on describing language as an emergent phenomenon. This paper clarifies how the core concept of emergence is deployed in this emergentist programme. We show that if one adopts the weak understandings of the concept of language emergence, the emergentist programme is not fundamentally different from the other non-emergentist research programmes in linguistics. On the other hand, if one adopts the stronger understandings of emergence then the programme would have a unique (...)
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  • The Scope of the Construction of Experience in Empiricist Structuralism.Nelida Gentile - 2017 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 21 (3):445-459.
    In his attempt to put forward an empiricist version of structuralism, van Fraassen develops an approach to scientific representation and models which has been the object of several critiques. Here we cover the “Loss of Reality Objection”, namely, that reality itself would play no role in science if science could only refer to mathematical models. We examine and dismiss the solution offered by van Fraassen. Finally, we offer an alternative solution path.
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  • On the Explanatory Power of Dispositional Realism.Nélida Gentile & Susana Lucero - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie:1-16.
    The article focuses on the unifying and explanatory power of the selective realism defended by Anjan Chakravartty. Our main aim is twofold. First, we critically analyse the purported synthesis between entity realism and structural realism offered by the author. We give reasons to think that this unification is an inconvenient marriage. In the second step, we deal with certain controversial aspects of the intended unification among three metaphysical concepts: causation, laws of nature and natural kinds. After pointing out that Chakravartty’s (...)
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  • Applicability, Indispensability, and Underdetermination: Puzzling Over Wigner’s ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics’.Axel Gelfert - 2014 - Science & Education 23 (5):997-1009.
    In his influential 1960 paper ‘The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences’, Eugene P. Wigner raises the question of why something that was developed without concern for empirical facts—mathematics—should turn out to be so powerful in explaining facts about the natural world. Recent philosophy of science has developed ‘Wigner’s puzzle’ in two different directions: First, in relation to the supposed indispensability of mathematical facts to particular scientific explanations and, secondly, in connection with the idea that aesthetic criteria track (...)
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  • Lucasian Microfoundations as a Form of Structural Realism.Peter Galbács - 2021 - Filozofia Nauki 29 (3):9-35.
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  • 構造的解釈から見た時空の創発.Sho Fujita - 2020 - Journal of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 48 (1):1-19.
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  • An Interpretation on Structural Realism to Spacetime Used in Big-Bang Cosmology.Sho Fujita - 2017 - Journal of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science 44 (1-2):1-14.
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  • Unitary inequivalence as a problem for structural realism.Steven French - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (2):121-136.
    Howard argues that the existence of unitarily inequivalent representations in Quantum Field Theory presents a problem for structural realism in this context. I consider two potential ways round this problem: 1), follow Wallace in adopting the 'naive' Lagrangian form of QFT with cut-offs; 2), adapt Ruetsche's 'Swiss Army Knife' approach. The first takes us into the current debate between Wallace and Fraser on conventional vs. algebraic QFT. The second involves consideration of the role of inequivalent representations in understanding spontaneous symmetry (...)
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  • The interdependence of structure, objects and dependence.Steven French - 2010 - Synthese 175 (S1):89-109.
    According to ‘Ontic Structural Realism’ (OSR), physical objects—qua metaphysical entities—should be reconceptualised, or, more strongly, eliminated in favour of the relevant structures. In this paper I shall attempt to articulate the relationship between these putative objects and structures in terms of certain accounts of metaphysical dependence currently available. This will allow me to articulate the differences between the different forms of OSR and to argue in favour of the ‘eliminativist’ version. A useful context is provided by Floridi’s account of the (...)
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  • The interdependence of structure, objects and dependence.Steven French - 2010 - Synthese 175 (S1):89 - 109.
    According to 'Ontic Structural Realism' (OSR), physical objects—qua metaphysical entities—should be reconceptualised, or, more strongly, eliminated in favour of the relevant structures. In this paper I shall attempt to articulate the relationship between these putative objects and structures in terms of certain accounts of metaphysical dependence currently available. This will allow me to articulate the differences between the different forms of OSR and to argue in favour of the 'eliminativist' version. A useful context is provided by Floridi's account of the (...)
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  • Shifting to structures in physics and biology: A prophylactic for promiscuous realism.Steven French - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (2):164-173.
    Within the philosophy of science, the realism debate has been revitalised by the development of forms of structural realism. These urge a shift in focus from the object oriented ontologies that come and go through the history of science to the structures that remain through theory change. Such views have typically been elaborated in the context of theories of physics and are motivated by, first of all, the presence within such theories of mathematical equations that allow straightforward representation of the (...)
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  • Scribbling on the blank sheet: Eddington's structuralist conception of objects.Steven French - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (2):227-259.
    Although Eddington's philosophy of physics has been subjected to critical re-evaluation in recent years, neither the exact nature of his structuralist views nor his response to criticism by the likes of Braithwaite have been made clear. In this paper I trace, in particular, the incorporation into Eddington's structuralism of the non-classical indistinguishability of quantum objects. His metaphysical view of such objects as the product of group-theoretical analysis is crucial for understanding his response to Braithwaite's criticisms of the whole structuralist endeavor. (...)
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  • Superconductivity and structures: revisiting the London account.Steven French & James Ladyman - 1997 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 28 (3):363-393.
    Cartwright and her collaborators have elaborated a provocative view of science which emphasises the independence from theory &unknown;in methods and aims&unknown; of phenomenological model building. This thesis has been supported in a recent paper by an analysis of the London and London model of superconductivity. In the present work we begin with a critique of Cartwright's account of the relationship between theoretical and phenomenological models before elaborating an alternative picture within the framework of the partial structures version of the semantic (...)
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  • Remodelling structural realism: Quantum physics and the metaphysics of structure. [REVIEW]Steven French & James Ladyman - 2003 - Synthese 136 (1):31-56.
    We outline Ladyman's 'metaphysical' or 'ontic' form of structuralrealism and defend it against various objections. Cao, in particular, has questioned theview of ontology presupposed by this approach and we argue that by reconceptualisingobjects in structural terms it offers the best hope for the realist in thecontext of modern physics.
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  • Realism and its representational vehicles.Steven French - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3311-3326.
    In this essay I shall focus on the adoption of the Semantic Approach by structural realists, including myself, who have done so on the grounds that it wears its structuralist sympathies on its sleeve. Despite this, the SA has been identified as standing in tension with the ontological commitments of the so-called ’ontic’ form of this view and so I shall explore that tension before discussing the usefulness of the SA in framing scientific representation and concluding with a discussion of (...)
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