[Revised entry by Holger Andreas on May 22, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
A simple explanation of theoreticity says that a term is theoretical if and only if it refers to nonobservational entities. Paradigmatic examples of such entities are electrons, neutrinos, gravitational forces, genes etc. There is another explanation of theoreticity: a theoretical term is one whose meaning becomes determined through the axioms of a scientific theory. The meaning of the term 'force', for example, is seen to be determined by Newton's laws of motion and further laws about special forces,...