Reconsidering Structural Realism

Abstract

In the lengthy debate over the question of scientific realism one of the least discussed positions is structural realism. However, this position ought to attract critical attention because it purports to preserve the central insights of the best arguments for both realism and anti-realism. John Worrall has in fact described it as being ‘the best of both worlds’ that recognizes the discontinuous nature of scientific change as well as the ‘no-miracles’ argument for scientific realism. However, the validity of this claim has been called into question by Stathis Psillos. He questions its ability to correctly account for the examples of scientific change that its supporters, like Worrall (following Poincaré), claim ought to be understood in a structural realist light.In this paper I examine these arguments for and against structural realism and demonstrate that neither Worrall nor Psillos is fully correct. I agree with Psillos’ claim that realism with regards to a theory ought not to be ‘all or nothing,’ that one should not always take the whole of a theory to be true or else commit only to the belief in its directly empirical content.

Theory Change, Structural Realism, and the RelativisedA Priori

“…Nevertheless, as I have pointed out elsewhere, SR places no restriction on a new theory adding new interaction properties or recontextualising old properties along with sets of new ones (McArthur 2003). So, while supporting a continuity of at least some law-like statements between different domains, structuralists can accommodate the sort of comprehensive conceptual changes that take place in instances of framework change.…”

“…They can even accept two thus related theories referring to largely different ontologies since the view is only committed to the structural relations, that is, stable material interactions, that hold in either theory. In fact as I have argued in earlier publications, a structural realist can actually take a deflationary stance to the theoretical entities in current theory, and is in no way committed to a theory's whole ontology (McArthur 2003(McArthur , 2006. A structural realist can take a theoretical entity to exist or to simply be a mathematical stopping point used to generate predictions.…”

“…However, the position has been revived recently by Worrall (1989) and the view has been since defended in several forms by a very large number of commentators such as Chakravartty (1998Chakravartty ( , 2003, Ladyman (1998;French and Ladyman 2003a, b) and me (McArthur 2003(McArthur , 2006. In this discussion I follow Chakravartty's suggestions that develop from Worrall's basic presentation of the position.…”

Contra Cartwright: Structural Realism, Ontological Pluralism and Fundamentalism About Laws

“…Although structural realism is quite old and dates from Poincaré (1905) and before, John Worrall (1989) has recently revived it, and it has since been much discussed by a number of other commentators (cf., e.g., Psillos 1995, 2001, Chakravartty 1998, 2002, McArthur 2003. This view essentially states that science provides knowledge of the structural relations that the constituents of scientific theories engage in, but does not necessarily tell us anything else of its objects of study.…”

Genetic Epistemology and Piaget's Philosophy of Science

“…logical and mathematical structures that are continually being elaborated and revised), scientific theories more closely approach reality as a mathematical limit. 12 Piaget's realist notion of scientific progress bears striking similarities to the 'structural realism' that has been under considerable discussion among contemporary philosophers of science (see, e.g., Ladyman, 1998;McArthur, 2003;Psillos, 1995;Worrall, 1989). 13 This view maintains that what scientific theories are capable of capturing are structural properties of reality.…”