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(2008) Synthese 162 (1).
Structural realism is an attempt to balance the competing demands of the No Miracles Argument and the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. In this paper I trace the development of the structuralist idea through the work of one of its leading advocates, John Worrall. I suggest that properly thought through what the structuralist is offering or should be offering is not an account of how to divide up a theory into two parts—structure and ontology—but (perhaps surprisingly) a certain kind of theory of meaning—semantic holism. I explain how a version of structural realism can be developed using Davidson’s theory of meaning and some advantages this has over the Ramsey-sentence version of structuralism.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-007-9171-z
Full citation:
Ritchie, J. (2008). Structural realism and Davidson. Synthese 162 (1), pp. 85-100.
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