Meaning and testability in the structuralist theory of science

Erkenntnis 59 (1):47 - 76 (2003)
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Abstract

The connection between scientific knowledge and our empirical access to realityis not well explained within the structuralist approach to scientific theories. I arguethat this is due to the use of a semantics not rich enough from the philosophical pointof view. My proposal is to employ Sellars–Brandom's inferential semantics to understand how can scientific terms have empirical content, and Hintikka's game-theoretical semantics to analyse how can theories be empirically tested. The main conclusions are that scientific concepts gain their meaning through `basic theories' grounded on `common sense, and that scientific method usually allows the pragmatic verification and falsification of scientific theories.

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Citations of this work

Inconsistent idealizations and inferentialism about scientific representation.Peter Tan - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 89 (C):11-18.

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References found in this work

Empiricism and the philosophy of mind.Wilfrid Sellars - 1956 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1:253-329.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.Karl Popper - 1959 - Studia Logica 9:262-265.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.K. Popper - 1959 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 10 (37):55-57.
An Architectonic for Science.Wolfgang Balzer, C. Ulises Moulines & Joseph D. Sneed - 1990 - Philosophy of Science 57 (2):349-350.

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