According to the semantic view of scientific theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view — if taken literally — leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical relations, such as embeddability of one the...

‘Structural realism’ is a buzzword in the scientific realism debate. Various positions with diverse motivations fall under this label. A much advertised distinction is between epistemic and ontological forms of structuralism. This paper scrutinizes the alleged dichotomy between these two ‘alternatives’, and criticises the considerations that have been taken to motivate the ontic variety over th...

According to the semantic view of scientic theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view — if taken seriously as a formal explication — leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are truly distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are truly equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical relation...