Recent works in scientific realism by Stanford (2006) and Chakravartty (2008) have generated interests in the research of a more selective and sophisticated scientific realism. Such debates advance the philosophical development of scientific realism, and arguably shape scientific realism toward a more refined description. Among many scientific theories discussed by Stanford (2006) and Chakravar...

Structural realism has been proposed as an epistemological position interpolating between realism and sceptical anti-realism about scientific theories. The structural realist who accepts a scientific theory Θ thinks that Θ is empirically correct, and furthermore is a realist about the ‘structural content’ of Θ. But what exactly is ‘structural content’? One proposal is that the ‘structural conte...

Scientific change has two important dimensions: conceptual change and structural change. In this paper, I argue that the existence of conceptual change brings serious difficulties for scientific realism, and the existence of structural change makes structural realism look quite implausible. I then sketch an alternative account of scientific change, in terms of partial structures, that accommoda...