A choice-semantical approach to theoretical truth

• A novel model theoretic analysis of theoretical truth in terms of a choice semantics.
• A result connecting the modal and the choice-semantical accounts of theoretical truth.
• A systematic study of the inferential strength of different logics of theoretical truth.

A central topic in the logic of science concerns the proper semantic analysis of theoretical sentences, that is sentences containing theoretical terms. In this paper, we present a novel choice-semantical account of theoretical truth based on the epsilon-term definition of theoretical terms. Specifically, we develop two ways of specifying the truth conditions of theoretical statements in a choice functional semantics, each giving rise to a corresponding logic of such statements. In order to investigate the inferential strength of these logical systems, we provide a translation of each truth definition into a modal definition of theoretical truth. Based on this, we show that the stronger notion of choice-semantical truth captures more adequately our informal semantic understanding of scientific statements.