Scientific Knowledge and Structural Knowledge

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science book series (WONS, volume 75)

Abstract

There is a very general question in the philosophy of science. It is this: how do we think our theories represent the world? What is theoretical knowledge in the sciences, knowledge of? One very influential answer to this question is the thesis of Structuralism: theoretical knowledge is not knowledge of unobservable objects and the hidden relations among them but is always and only knowledge of structure.

Keywords

Theoretical Knowledge Scientific Realism Early Theory Predictive Success Empirical Adequacy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of St. AndrewsSt. AndrewsUK

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