Scientific Structuralism: Presentation and Representation

This paper explores varieties of scientific structuralism. Central to our investigation is the notion of ‘shared structure’. We begin with a description of mathematical structuralism and use this to point out analogies and disanalogies with scientific structuralism. Our particular focus is the semantic structuralist’s attempt to use the notion of shared structure to account for the theory‐world connection, this use being crucially important to both the contemporary structural empiricist and realist. We show why minimal scientific structuralism is, at the very least, a powerful methodological standpoint. Our investigation also makes explicit what more must be added to this minimal structuralist position in order to address the theory‐world connection, namely, an account of representation.

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