Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-vfh8q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-21T06:31:38.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

One or Two Gentle Remarks about Hans Halvorson’s Critique of the Semantic View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bas C. van Fraassen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent papers Hans Halvorson has offered a critique of the semantic view of theories, showing that theories may be the same although the corresponding sets of models are different and, conversely, that theories may be different although the corresponding sets of models are the same. This critique will be assessed, first, as it pertains to issues concerning scientific models in the empirical sciences and, second, independent of any concern with empirical science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 276 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

The author wishes to acknowledge earlier correspondence with Hans Halvorson as well as the helpful comments on a draft of this essay by Otávio Bueno, Steven French, Ronald Giere, James Ladyman, Elisabeth Lloyd, and Mauricio Suárez.

References

Chang, C. C., and Keisler, H. J.. 1973. Model Theory. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Glymour, Clark. 1970. “Theoretical Realism and Theoretical Equivalence.” In PSA 1970: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, ed. Buck, Roger and Cohen, R. S., 275–88. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. S. 2013. “Theoretical Equivalence and the Semantic View of Theories.” Philosophy of Science 80:286–97.Google Scholar
Halvorson, Hans. 2012. “What Scientific Theories Could Not Be.” Philosophy of Science 79:183–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halvorson, Hans 2013. “The Semantic View, if Plausible, Is Syntactic.” Philosophy of Science 80:475–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Abraham. 1965. Introduction to Model Theory and the Metamathematics of Algebra. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Suárez, Mauricio. 1999. “Theories, Models and Representations.” In Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, ed. Magnani, Lorenzo, Nersessian, Nancy J., and Thagard, Paul, 75–83. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suppe, Frederick Roy. 1967. “The Meaning and Use of Models in Mathematics and the Exact Sciences: A Study in the Structure of Exact Scientific Theories.” PhD diss., University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Suppe, Frederick Roy 1974. The Structure of Scientific Theories. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Suppes, Patrick. 1957. Introduction to Logic. New York: Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen. 1974. “The Structure of Scientific Theories.” In Suppe 1974, 600–614.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1970. “On the Extension of Beth’s Semantics of Physical Theories.” Philosophy of Science 37:325–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1972. “A Formal Approach to the Philosophy of Science.” In Paradigms and Paradoxes: The Philosophical Challenge of the Quantum Domain, ed. Colodny, R., 303–66. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Colodny, R. 1989. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar