Hierarchy versus holism: A structuralist view on general relativity

The philosophical debate whether the epistemological and conceptual structure of science is better characterized as hierarchical or as holistic cannot be decideda priori. A case study on general relativity should help to clarify our representation of this section of physics. For this purpose Sneed's model-theoretic approach is used to reconstruct the structure of relativity. The proposed axiomatization of general relativity takes into account approximations and utilizes local models for a realistic view on the functioning of the theory. A central objective of the paper is to give an explication of the approximative empirical claim of general relativity, which is designed to identify the empirical content of the theory in a weak hierarchical form.I wish to thank John Forge, Ulises Moulines, Ulrich Gähde and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.