Epistemic structural realism, modality and laws of nature

Abstract

According to epistemic structural realism (EER) scientific theories provide us only with knowledge about the structure of the unobservable world, but not about its nature. The most significant objection that this posi- tion has faced is the so-called Newman's problem. In this paper I offer an alternative objection to EER. I argue that its formulation leads to undesirable skeptical positions in two fields close to scientific realism: the debates on modality and laws of nature. I also show that there is an interesting sense in which my objection is stronger than the one offered by Newman.