"The Semantic Conception and the Structuralist View of Theories: A Critique of Suppe's Critiques"

LORENZANO, PABLO

Múnich

Workshop; International Workshop "Perspectives on Structuralism"; 2012

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Different conceptions of scientific theories, such as the state spaces of Bas van Fraassen, the phase spaces of Frederick Suppe, the set-theoretical of Patrick Suppes, and the structuralist view of Joseph Sneed et al. are usually put together into one big family. In addition, the definite article for a singular noun is used most of the time and thus we speak of the semantic conception (view or approach) of theories and of its different approaches (variants or versions). However, in The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism (Urban and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), starting from certain remarks already made in "Theory Structure" (in Asquith, P. and H. Kyburg (eds.), Current Research in Philosophy of Science, East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1979, pp. 317-338), Frederick Suppe excludes the structuralist view as well as other "European" versions from the semantic conception of theories. In this paper I will critically examine the reasons argued by Suppe for such a decision and, later on, I will make a general characterization of the semantic family and of the structuralist view in such a way that it will be justified the inclusion of the structuralist view (as well as other "European" versions) as a member of this family.