Mahmood Vahidnia; Seyed Mohammadhassan Ayatollahzadeh Shirazi
Abstract
This paper provides a critical and comparative study of two versions of scientific structuralism. After a brief introduction, in section 2, we review the key concepts in the long-lasting debate between realism and antirealism in the general philosophy of science; scientific realism is a positive and ...
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This paper provides a critical and comparative study of two versions of scientific structuralism. After a brief introduction, in section 2, we review the key concepts in the long-lasting debate between realism and antirealism in the general philosophy of science; scientific realism is a positive and optimistic epistemic attitude towards scientific theories (and especially the non-observational aspects thereof). Two influential arguments around the above debate are introduced and briefly examined in section 3; the main disagreement between the realist and the antirealist will turn on whether or not the novel predictive success of scientific theories is in need of any explanation (especially through truth). In section 4, focusing on a classic paper by John Worrall, we will see that structural realism has been introduced as a middle and more balanced position in the realism-antirealism dispute: (theoretical) scientific knowledge only concerns the structure of the (unobservable) world. Although Worrall himself was not explicit in this regard, we try to provide a preliminary understanding of his notion of structure. The more elaborate and detailed formulation of Worrall’s structural realism based on Ramseyfication is presented and briefly examined in section 5. Possibly the most well-known threat to structural realism is an objection originally attributed to Max Newman: structuralism trivializes the theoretical (or non-observational) implications of scientific theories. In section 6, we provide an extensive treatment of Newman’s objection, before arguing that structural realism can successfully circumvent it. Bas van Fraassen, who seems to consider Newman’s objection somewhat detrimental to Worrall’s project, advocates an antirealist view called empiricist structuralism. The latter mainly originates from the fact that the vehicles of scientific representation are mathematical models and structures. The motivations for this view along with its differences from scientific realism are reviewed in section 7. In the penultimate section 8, we will note that empiricist structuralism too is not totally immune from trivialization objections of the kind raised by Newman and also Putnam. It is, among other things, these kinds of threats that lead van Fraassen to a nonstructural aspect of scientific representation: perspectivity/indexicality. In our final argument, we intend to show that recognizing such an aspect, though revealing in itself, is NOT sufficient for repelling trivialization threats, unless van Fraassen is willing to sacrifice his long-standing commitment to the literal construal of the language of science. We will end with a brief conclusion.
