Two Dogmas of Structural Realism. A Confirmation of a Philosophical Death Foretold

Abstract

Twenty years ago John Worrall offered an alleged non-standard viable form of scientific realism under the name structural realism. Structural realism was supposed to be both an alternative to standard scientific realism and viable form of realism. The central questions addressed in this paper are what I call the two dogmas of structural realism: the idea that there is structure retention across theory change, and the idea that theoretical structures describe the world. Arthur Fine proclaimed that scientific realism was dead. I claim that Worrall’s attempt to bring scientific realism back to life has failed.