Santa’s Gift of Structural Realism

Abstract

As I am not a specialist in the subject matter of Holger Lyre’s paper,¹ I had to learn from him that there are two different approaches to structural realism in the literature, the “Worrall-type” and the “French-Ladyman-type” approach, as he calls them.² The Worrall-type approach is a reaction to the difficulties that emerged in the defence of entity realism against various objections, especially against the well-known pessimistic meta-induction.³ In contrast, the French-Ladyman-type approach tries “to present arguments from the sciences directly, more precisely from the way modern science, notably physics, informs us about the ontology of the world”.⁴ Thus, it seems to be the much more straightforward approach to structural realism, avoiding the detour of getting involved in a rather convoluted discussion. In the following, I shall present two critical remarks on this approach.