FROM SCIENTIFIC STRUCTURALISM TO TRANSCENDENTAL STRUCTURALISM

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the current debate between scientific realism and empiricism, both sides seem to embrace some sort of structuralism as an important component of their descriptions of science. The structural realism is generally presented in two versions: one ontic and the other epistemic. It has been argued that that epistemic structural realism (ESR) is close, if not identical, to a Kantian approach. We aim to show that this is not the case, since ESR, being fundamentally a realist position, cannot be fully consistent with a transcendental approach. Such a position is better called transcendental structuralism (TS), an alternative that we believe is worth being investigated on its own. In this paper, we will take Henry Allison's interpretation of transcendental idealism as a starting point to establish the distinctions between ESR and TS.

Keywords

• Ontic structural realism
• epistemic structural realism
• transcendental structuralism