Abstract

In van Fraassen's The Scientific Image we are told that the scientific anti‐realist need not appeal to some special semantics for scientific language. He can allegedly hold – just like his direct opponents typically do – that truth‐conditional semantics is appropriate both for claims about the observable and claims about the unobservable. However, I shall point out that this kind of semantics goes badly with the anti‐realist's epistemic attitude vis‐his the unobservable. In this paper an alternative semantics shall be outlined that is perfectly compatible with the rest of the anti‐realist's position. Although this alternative semantics will be seen to fly in the face of the established doctrine in the field, I shall argue that there is currently no good reason not to adopt it. It will further be pointed out that this semantics has something to be recommended from a realist perspective as well.