A choice-semantical approach to theoretical truth.

Stud Hist Philos Sci

Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU, Munich, Germany; Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria. Electronic address:

Published: August 2016

A central topic in the logic of science concerns the proper semantic analysis of theoretical sentences, that is sentences containing theoretical terms. In this paper, we present a novel choice-semantical account of theoretical truth based on the epsilon-term definition of theoretical terms. Specifically, we develop two ways of specifying the truth conditions of theoretical statements in a choice functional semantics, each giving rise to a corresponding logic of such statements. In order to investigate the inferential strength of these logical systems, we provide a translation of each truth definition into a modal definition of theoretical truth. Based on this, we show that the stronger notion of choice-semantical truth captures more adequately our informal semantic understanding of scientific statements.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2016.02.001DOI Listing

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