Abstract
Based on archival material from the Carnap and FeiglArchives, this paper re-examines Carnap's approach tothe issue of scientific realism in the 1950s and theearly 1960s. It focuses on Carnap's re-invention ofthe Ramsey-sentence approach to scientific theoriesand argues that Carnap wanted to entertain a genuineneutral stance in the realism-instrumentalism debate.Following Grover Maxwell, it claims that Carnap'sposition may be best understood as a version of`structural realism'. However, thus understood,Carnap's position faces the challenge that Newmanraised against Russell's structuralism: the claim thatthe knowledge of the unobservable is limited to itspurely structural characteristics is eitheruninformative or unsustainable.
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Psillos, S. Carnap, the Ramsey-Sentence and Realistic Empiricism. Erkenntnis 52, 253–279 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005589117656
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005589117656