Can meaningless statements be approximately true? On relaxing the semantic com ponent of scientific realism

First, I show that the semantic thesis of scientific realism may be relaxed significantly—to allow that some scientific discourse is not truth-valued—without making any concessions concerning the epistemic or methodological theses which lie at realism’s core. Second, I illustrate how relaxing the semantic thesis allows realists to avoid positing abstract entities and to fend off objections to the ‘no miracles’ argument from positions such as cognitive instrumentalism. Third, I argue that the semantic thesis of scientific realism should be relaxed, because it is possible for scientific statements to be partially true, and hence approximately true, without being false.