The epistemological status of scientific theories: An investigation of the structural realist account
Dissertation, London School of Economics (2004)
Abstract
In this dissertation, I examine a view called ‘Epistemic Structural Realism’, which holds that we can, at best, have knowledge of the structure of the physical world. Put crudely, we can know physical objects only to the extent that they are nodes in a structure. In the spirit of Occam’s razor, I argue that, given certain minimal assumptions, epistemic structural realism provides a viable and reasonable scientific realist position that is less vulnerable to anti-realist arguments than any of its rivals.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask.Roman Frigg & Ioannis Votsis - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (2):227-276.
The Abductivist Reply to Skepticism.James R. Beebe - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3):605-636.
Newman's objection.Peter M. Ainsworth - 2009 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (1):135-171.
Structural realism: Continuity and its limits.Ioannis Votsis - 2009 - In Alisa Bokulich & Peter Bokulich (eds.), Scientific Structuralism. Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 105--117.
Structural Realism or Modal Empiricism?Quentin Ruyant - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):1051-1072.
References found in this work
The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions.Philip Kitcher - 1993 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.