Abstract

I use the empirical approach to the direct empirical status to clarify the question of which theoretical symmetries have DES. I prove in particular that if a global symmetry has the identifiable observational DES by virtue of representing observable features of an identifiable empirical symmetry, then using gauge symmetries a local symmetry with the same DES can always be constructed. I explain why this demonstrates that currently we should take local symmetries to be at least as much relevant for the ontology as global symmetries are.