Structural realism and Davidson

Jack Ritchie

pp. 85-100

in: Synthese 162 (1), 2008.

Abstract

Structural realism is an attempt to balance the competing demands of the No Miracles Argument and the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. In this paper I trace the development of the structuralist idea through the work of one of its leading advocates, John Worrall. I suggest that properly thought through what the structuralist is offering or should be offering is not an account of how to divide up a theory into two parts—structure and ontology—but (perhaps surprisingly) a certain kind of theory of meaning—semantic holism. I explain how a version of structural realism can be developed using Davidson’s theory of meaning and some advantages this has over the Ramsey-sentence version of structuralism.

Cited authors

Davidson Donald

Worrall John