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    Laudan's pessimistic induction targets entity-level ontol... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The worry raised by Laudan's argument can be rephrased in terms of the mistaken ontologies of past theories from later perspectives

    Laudan's pessimistic induction targets entity-level ontology, which structural realists explicitly do not commit to as the locus of scientific success.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Laudan's induction assumes entities like phlogiston and caloric are the grounds of theory success, but structural realism relocates success to relational patterns.
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    • 2.If structural invariants persist across theory change while posited entities do not, then entities cannot explain why successful theories remain approximately true.
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    • 3.Structural realism immunizes itself from Laudan's argument by design, since it never claimed unobservable entities were necessary for predictive achievement.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Structures cannot be instantiated or causally efficacious without some concrete relata; claiming success depends only on structure still presupposes some ontology.
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    • 2.Laudan's argument applies equally to structural properties: if electron spin structure was wrong before, why trust current structural attributions more than entity claims?
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    • 3.The distinction between entity and structure is unclear; 'structure' in physics often refers to causal-relational properties of entities, not ontologically independent objects.
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    Related

    If structural invariants persist across theory change while posited entities do ...Laudan's argument applies equally to structural properties: if electron spin str...Laudan's induction assumes entities like phlogiston and caloric are the grounds ...Structural realism immunizes itself from Laudan's argument by design, since it n...
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    Structures cannot be instantiated or causally efficacious without some concrete ...The distinction between entity and structure is unclear; 'structure' in physics ...The worry raised by Laudan's argument can be rephrased in terms of the mistaken ...

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