Structuralism: Subject definition List

Structuralism is not one of the many philosophical "isms". It is a logical tool kit and an efficient technical language to analyse and communicate the structure, the logical skeleton, as it were, of theories. Structuralist tools can be applied to any theory, good or bad, rational or irrational, harmless or dangerous. Structuralist philosophy of science is value free analytical philosophy of science.

In the structuralist analysis of a theory, the questions are:

• what are the things that are logically possible in the reality the theory deals with (what claims can be expressed in the language used by the theory).
• which of these logically possible things are, and which are not ruled out by the claims of a theory.

Any theory, scientific, non-scientific, smart or stupid,  holds together a body of such claims ruling out possibilities in a specific way, and if you apply structuralism want to know

• exactly how a particular theory under scrutiny does so

PHiLES deals mainly with structuralism as applied to economic theories.