What Scientific Theories Could Not Be*

@article{Halvorson2012WhatST,
  title={What Scientific Theories Could Not Be*},
  author={Hans Halvorson},
  journal={Philosophy of Science},
  year={2012},
  volume={79},
  pages={183 - 206}
}
According to the semantic view of scientific theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view—if taken literally—leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical relations, such as embeddability of one theory into another. The untenability of the semantic view—as currently formulated—threatens to undermine… 
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150 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
13
Background Citations
70
Methods Citations
5
Results Citations
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150 Citations

The Semantic View, If Plausible, Is Syntactic
Halvorson argues that the semantic view of theories leads to absurdities. Glymour shows how to inoculate the semantic view against Halvorson’s criticisms, namely, by making it into a syntactic view…
Theoretical Equivalence and the Semantic View of Theories
Halvorson argues through a series of examples and a general result due to Myers that the “semantic view” of theories has no available account of formal theoretical equivalence. De Bouvere provides…
Semantic realism in the semantic conception of theories
TLDR
Making sense of semantic realism requires specifying the conditions of application of theoretical models, even for models that are not actually used, which leads to several difficulties.
The Representational Semantic Conception
This article argues for a representational semantic conception (RSC) of scientific theories, which respects the bare claim of any semantic view, namely, that theories can be characterized as sets of…
One or Two Gentle Remarks about Hans Halvorson’s Critique of the Semantic View
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,…
One or Two Gentle Remarks about Hans Halvorson’s Critique of the Semantic View
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,…
What Was the Syntax‐Semantics Debate in the Philosophy of Science About?
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…
Psychological Explanation, Ontological Commitment and the Semantic View of Theories
Naturalistic philosophers of mind must assume some philosophy of science. For naturalism demands that we look to psychology — but to be guided by psychological theories, one must have some story…
Scientific Representation and Theoretical Equivalence
TLDR
It is argued that by paying attention to how a model is used to draw inferences about its target system, the authors can define a notion of theoretical equivalence that turns on whether models license the same claims about the same target systems.
Scientific Realism, the Semantic View and Evolutionary Biology
TLDR
This work will analyse some of the difficulties which arise when trying to use Ontic Structural Realism to account for evolutionary biology.
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References

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