Some issues in the semantics of empirical theories

Synthese, 2014

First, I discuss the older "theory-centered" and the more recent semantic conception of scientific theories. I argue that these two perspectives are nothing more than terminological variants of one another. I then offer a new theory-centered view of scientific theories. I argue that this new view captures the insights had by each of these earlier views, that it's closer to how scientists think about their own theories, and that it better accommodates the phenomenon of inconsistent scientific theories. Keywords Semantic conception of scientific theories • Inconsistent theories • Formal languages • Scientific theories as models • Bridge principles

2011

Abstract In this paper we discuss two approaches to the axiomatization of scientific theories in the context of the so called semantic approach, according to which (roughly) a theory can be seen as a class of models. The two approaches are associated respectively to Suppes' and to da Costa and Chuaqui's works.

Academia Letters, 2021

We will argue that semantic models are not enough to distinguish between what is meaningful and what is pseudo-meaningful. It can only do so when combined to some further knowledge of the interpretative options, and those are arrived at by the Scientific models of reality. The discussion of the difference between what is meaningful and what is nonsense is, on this account, always subjected to a discussion about the demarcation between science and pseudo-science. This discussion can be made employing metaphysical reasoning, by positivist criteria or naturalistic parameters. In any case, what enters in question is not merely semantic, and semantics is not able to offer a universal and timeless account of the distinction of meaning and pseudo-meaning. This is a short article to highlight some forgotten relations between formal semantics and philosophical issues. This relations were once the common trait of a category theory, but as the speculations pertaining to this field became more linked to mathematical models on syntactic regularities and recursive semantic projections, the less the semantic problem seems linked to philosophical questions or questions related to scientific demarcation. The article is an appeal to remember this aspect of the discussion. Along with it we invite the reader to a reflection inside that field of debate. The tradition of semantic philosophy initiated by Frege (1982) had its broad repercussion because it gave all the tools to identify the mapping functions of language capable of basing its projection of identity content. An expression that is synonym of another have the same projection feature, i.e., it can map equal semantic values, or produce the same generative

2002

My model-theoretic realist account of science places linguistic systems and the corresponding non-linguistic structures at different stages of the scientific process. It is shown that science and its progress cannot be analysed in terms of only one of these strata. Philosophy of science literature offers mainly two approaches to the structure of scientific knowledge analysed in terms of theories and their models, the "statement" and the "non-statement" approaches. In opposition to the statement approach's belief that scientific knowledge is embodied in theories (formulated in some (first-order) symbolic language) with direct interpretative links-via so-called "bridge principles"-to reality, the defenders of the non-statement approach believe in an analysis where the language in which the theory is formulated plays a much smaller role than the (mathematical) structures which satisfy that theory. The model-theoretic realism expounded here retains the notion of a scientific theory as a (deductively closed) set of sentences, while simultaneously emphasising the interpretative role of the conceptual (i.a. mathematical) models of these theories. My criticism against the non-statement approach is based on the fact that merely "giving" the theory "in terms of' its mathematical structures leaves out any real interpretation of the nature and role of general terms in science. Against the statement approach's "direct" linking of general theoretical terms to reality, my approach interpolates models between theories and (aspects of) reality in the interpretative chain. The links between the general terms of scientific theories and their interpretations in the various models of the theory regulate the whole referential process. The terms of a theory are "general" in the sense that they are the result of certain abstractive conceptualisations of the object of scientific investigation and subsequent linguistic formulations of these conceptualisations. Their (particular) meanings can be "given back" only by interpreting them in the limited context of the various conceptual models of their theory and, finally, by finding an isomorphic relation between some substructure of the conceptual model in question and some empirical conceptualisation (model) of relevant experimental data. In this sense the notion of scientific "truth" becomes inextricably linked with that of articulated reference, as it-given its model-dependent nature-should be.

2000

It is now part and parcel of the official philosoph ical wisdom that models are essential to the acquisition and organisation of scientific knowledg e. It is also generally accepted that most models represent their target systems in one way or another. But what does it mean for a model to represent its target system? I begin by introducing three

Principia, 2007

The world science describes tends to have a very strange look. We can't see atoms or force fields, nor are they imaginable within visualizable categories, so neither can we even imagine what the world must be like according to recent physical theories. That tension, between what science depicts as reality and how things appear to us, though it is more striking now, has been with us since modern science began. It can be addressed, and perhaps alleviated by inquiring into how science represents nature. In general, representation is selective, the selection is of what is relevant to the purpose at hand, and success may even require distortion. From this point of view, the constraint on science, that it must 'save the phenomena', takes on a new form. The question to be faced is how the perspectival character of the appearances (that is, contents of measurement outcomes) can be related to the hidden structure that the sciences postulate. In the competing interpretations of quantum mechanics we can see how certain traditional ideals and constraints are left behind. Specifically, Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics offers a probative example of the freedom of scientific representation. Abstract Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism -the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do existand constructive empiricism -the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science.

synthese, 2020

Semantic realism can be characterised as the idea that scientic theories are truth-bearers, and that they are true or false in virtue of the world. This notion is often assumed, but rarely discussed in the literature. I examine how it fares in the context of the semantic view of theories and in connection with the literature on scientic representation. Making sense of semantic realism requires specifying the conditions of application of theoretical models, even for models that are not actually used, which leads to several diculties. My conclusion is that semantic realism is far more demanding than one would expect. Finally, I briey examine some pragmatist alternatives.

2005

The focus of this paper is the recent revival of interest in structuralist approaches to science and, in particular, the structural realist position in philosophy of science. The challenge facing scientific structuralists is three-fold: i) to characterize scientific theories in ‘structural’ terms, and to use this characterization ii) to establish a theory-world connection (including an explanation of applicability) and iii) to address the relationship of ‘structural continuity’ between predecessor and successor theories. Our aim is to appeal to the notion of shared structure between models to reconsider all of these challenges, and, in so doing, to classify the varieties of scientific structuralism and to offer a ‘minimal’ construal that is best viewed from a methodological stance.

Abreu, C. (ed.) Philosophy of Science in the 21st Century. Contributions of Metatheoretical Structuralism. Florianópolis: NEL/UFSC, 2023, pp. 23-38. ISBN 978-85-8328-232-7, 2023

The objective of this work is to analyze what conditions of a theory T the conceptual identity, or meaning, of a T-theoretical term depend on. I assume the idea, borrowed from Kuhn, that certain laws have a non-absolute synthetic a priori status. I defend that what structuralist metatheory presents as the fundamental law of a complex theory corresponds to a law with such status. I argue that the conceptual identity, or meaning, of a T-theoretical term basically depends on the fundamental law of T. I also argue that for a T-theoretical term to have operational relevance (for predictions and explanations) its meaning must be complemented with some sense(s). In this paper, 'Meaning' and 'sense(s)' for a T-theoretical term are introduced in a peculiar way.