What Was the Syntax‐Semantics Debate in the Philosophy of Science About?

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (2):319-352 (2017)
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Abstract

The debate between critics of syntactic and semantic approaches to the formalization of scientific theories has been going on for over 50 years. I structure the debate in light of a recent exchange between Hans Halvorson, Clark Glymour, and Bas van Fraassen and argue that the only remaining disagreement concerns the alleged difference in the dependence of syntactic and semantic approaches on languages of predicate logic. This difference turns out to be illusory.

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2015

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10.1111/phpr.12221

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Sebastian Lutz
Uppsala University

Citations of this work

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On symmetry and duality.Sebastian De Haro & Jeremy Butterfield - 2021 - Synthese 198 (4):2973-3013.
Categories and the Foundations of Classical Field Theories.James Owen Weatherall - forthcoming - In Elaine Landry (ed.), Categories for the Working Philosopher. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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References found in this work

Models in Science (2nd edition).Roman Frigg & Stephan Hartmann - 2021 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Laws and symmetry.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The scientific image.C. Van Fraassen Bas - 1980 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2008 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
The Structure of scientific theories.Frederick Suppe (ed.) - 1974 - Urbana,: University of Illinois Press.

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