ABSTRACT
Laws of nature govern natural kinds - indeed, some philosophers go so far as to say that a law of nature can only be characterized in relation to the natural kinds of which it holds. The crucial distinction between theoretical and observational terms cannot be sustained: people's experiences are significantly theory-laden and theoretical terms are meaningful independent of these experiences. The semantic position has it, then, that an axiomatic system acquires semantic meaning through a formal interpretation on which to each logical symbol is assigned an abstract object or property in the model. Models are pivotal to science. They mediate the connection between theory and reality and enable the scientist to devise new theories on the basis of what has been gleaned from experience. But science is more than just theories and models. Each paradigm determines its own semantics and in consequence there will be semantic differences between them.
