Abstract
According to a realist semantics, scientific theories represent their referents. They constitute conceptual representations of actual or hypothetical bits of reality — or rather of some of their traits. The same holds for some of the predicates and some of the formulas of a scientific theory. Just for some: not all of them represent. Thus, while a distance function may represent the spacing of things, not every one of the infinitely many functions of a given distance function will represent something. Likewise not every line in a deduction within a scientific theory represents some aspect of a thing: some statements are purely mathematical. What makes some constructs representational and others not? This is, in a nutshell, the problem of the present chapter.
Keywords
- Scientific Theory
- Equivalent Representation
- Conceptual Representation
- Eigenfunction Expansion
- Transformation Formula
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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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Bunge, M. (1974). Representation. In: Treatise on Basic Philosophy. Treatise on Basic Philosophy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9920-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9920-2_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-0572-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-9920-2
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