In conclusion the thesis of scientific realism is that the descriptive terms occurring in universally quantified statements accepted as true describe reality, because the statements are empirically warranted.  Thus each ontological interpretation for quantum theory can be construed as realist, but only to the extent that the theories are empirically warranted.  Thus scientific realism does not resolve issues of ontology.  Due to ontological relativity the empirical under-determination of language carries over into ontology, and the unresolved ontological issues in quantum theory result from the empirical underdetermination of the theory and its associated test design language. Consider the following analogy for the quantum theory measurement problem: A survey researcher asks a respondent to express his agreement (or disagreement) about a viewpoint using a scale of 1 to 10.  The respondent answers stating a value on the scale, and the interviewer dutifully records the measurement.  Two ontological scenarios are possible in this measurement situation: 1. The respondent had an opinion and made his response by recalling his opinion.  2. The respondent had no opinion but formed one upon being asked, and issued his response accordingly.  Both scenarios yield the same response and valid empirical measurement, just as the quantum measurements are empirically valid.  The issue of when the respondent’s opinion was formed is a supplementary consideration to be resolved by further inquiry.  So too with the time of the formation of the electron’s wave or particle manifestations or its position or momentum.  In anticipation of empirical evidence from future inquiry the physicist like the survey researcher can indulge in ontological speculation.  And both Einstein and Heisenberg like many others indulged in such speculation.  Einstein’s realist ontology resembles the first survey respondent scenario, and Heisenberg’s realist ontology of potentia the second.
          Thirdly consider Hanson's principal criticism of Bohm's hidden-variable interpretation of quantum theory.  Hanson's criticism is that Bohm has not developed any new empirically testable equations.  Initially Bohm had proposed his hidden-variable hypothesis as a heuristic for developing new microphysical equations that would resolve the renormalization problem, as well as unify physics with an ontology that is consistent for both macrophysics and microphysics.  For forty years he elaborated his interpretation of the existing quantum theory formalism, while the postulated subquantum field has remained remote from experimental detection, and while the renormalization problem remains unsolved.  In his "Hidden Variables and the Implicate Order" in Quantum Implications Bohm admits that his proposed hidden-variable interpretation did not catch on among physicists, since it gives exactly the same predictions for all experimental results as does the Copenhagen interpretation, which he calls the usual theory. 
          Hanson's critique of Bohm’s hidden-variable interpretation in his "Postscript" in Quanta and Reality seems to have been vindicated to date by the behavior of the physics profession in the years that have since elapsed notwithstanding Bell’s nonlocality theorem. There is no shortage of sociological and conspiracy theories about the exclusion of Bohm and his supporters.  Some philosophers of science as well as supporters of Bohm claim that the advocates of the Copenhagen interpretation have imposed some kind of hegemony on the physics profession.  Bohm claims in his Undivided Universe, that the Copenhagen interpretation prevails only because it was prior to his interpretation, and says that it is merely a historical circumstance if not an accident that the Copenhagen interpretation was chronologically prior to his alternative interpretation. 
          But such claims reveal a failure to understand the institutional value system of empirical science that guides and motivates scientists’ opportunistic decisions - including the decision by the majority to ignore Bohm’s hypotheses about phenomena occurring at an order of magnitude that is still experimentally undetectable.  Physicists exhibit what Bell calls a pragmatic attitude.  Feynman’s sum-over-paths approach to quantum theory notwithstanding, physicists are not interested in alternative interpretations for their own sake, i.e. interpretations that are not associated with new and empirically testable equations that solve problems which the current mathematical physics has yet to solve.  In fact the whole issue of alternative semantical and ontological interpretations for the quantum theory’s formalism is often ignored in textbooks on quantum theory.  Instead researchers in microphysics have allocated their time and effort to theorizing about the wealth of new data made available with the particle accelerators by developing the standard model and by developing string theory to account for gravitation as well.  Eventually new experimental techniques and apparati will enable physicists to detect and examine subquantum phenomena (it would be quite remarkable if in fact absolutely nothing actually exists at subquantum orders of magnitude, as Bohr had thought).  The question as to whether Bohm’s hidden-subquantum-field thesis or the string theory thesis elementary point particle composition will eventually enjoy the glorious destiny of the hidden-atomic theory of matter, or whether it will eventually suffer the inglorious denouement of the hidden-ether theory of light, remains to be seen.
          Finally consider Bohm and Hesse’s comments on metaphor.  Their differences not withstanding, Bohm and Hanson have a common belief underlying their interests in scientific discovery.  Traditionally it was thought that language has merely a passive role, such that firstly a discovery is made by observation of nature, and then language is employed to report the discovery.  But Hanson, Bohm, and later Hesse rejected the naturalistic philosophy of the semantics of language, which assigns to language such a passive role in scientific discovery.  Instead they recognized that language has an active role that enables language construction to function as an instrument or heuristic and thus to admit to a discovery strategy.  In their writings retroduction, analogy, and metaphor represent such semantical discovery strategies.  But to date neither their semantical strategies using figures of speech nor even Thagard’s computational efforts employing his analogical discovery strategy, have yielded new and consequential theories for any science.  The inspiring muses of ancient Greek mythology are still as operative in the use of figures of speech for scientific discovery, as they are for poetry and music.  While metaphor is not yet serviceable as a discovery procedure, it may be recognized as an outcome of mechanized discovery procedures due to the very unconventional statements generated as system outputs.
          Hesse’s reliance on Wittgenstein’s family-resemblance theory of meaning, however, is unfortunate.  Wittgenstein noted that humans are able to distinguish individuals without articulately characterizing the individuals’ distinguishing features or attributes, and to group of individuals without characterizing their common features or attributes that make them similar and that serve as the basis for grouping.  But so too can dogs and cats, neither of which practice scientific research.  Hesse draws upon this banal observation, and then confronts her readers with the dichotomous choice between Aristotle’s natural-kinds doctrine and Wittgenstein’s family-resemblance doctrine.  This is a false dichotomy.  It is also a rhetorical one, since Aristotle’s philosophy of natural kinds, substantial forms, and species has accumulated a long baggage train of implications and associated ideas during the interim two thousand years, and few contemporary philosophers would welcome being harnessed to pull this baggage train.  But Wittgenstein’s family-resemblance theory of meaning is a poor alternative.  As a wholistic theory of meaning, it is an exercise in vagueness about vagueness.  Furthermore semantical differences are not reducible to only differences in degree of similarity or difference. Few concepts are like the color words, such as shades of red, which Hesse uses as an example.  If meanings may be said to be approximate, as Hesse maintains, it is because they are vague.  And if meanings may be said to be similar or different, it is because they are fundamentally complexes that may share many or only a few discrete semantic components, which may be called semantic values.  When they share many components, or semantic values, they are similar, and when they share few, they are dissimilar.  Furthermore, Hesse is not even consistent with her Wittgensteinian theory of meaning.  For example in a discussion of how science can reclassify observed phenomena she notes the case in which whales become classified as mammals and not fish, because the property of suckling their young comes to be a more salient property than the fact that they live in the sea.  Clearly this property of suckling young is a difference between mammals and fish that is not a matter of degree or reducible to such.  A more adequate theory of meaning description than the family-resemblance thesis is needed, and a proposed alternative is set forth immediately below.
          Consider the following metatheory of meaning and of figures of speech such as metaphor, which does not propose that meanings are somehow continuous with one another such that differences and similarities are fundamentally matters of degree.  As a linguistic phenomenon metaphor may be explained with the semantical thesis that the meanings of descriptive terms have complex composition.  For purposes of analysis metaphor may be viewed in the context of predication to form a sentence.   Other modes of expression such as phrases or texts larger than sentences may reveal metaphorical use, when these expressions are transformed grammatically into the subject-predicate sentence form.  One of the identifying features of a metaphorical description is that if the term that is metaphorically predicated of a subject is taken in its literal, i.e. conventional sense, then the statement is false, although this is a feature only for metaphors occurring in affirmative predications.  For example in his Mental Leaps Thagard notes that the statement “No man is an island” is not literally false, even though “island” is also denied metaphorically of “man” in the statement.  Another feature is that when the statement is false, it is not an unrecognized mistake; it is deliberately issued with no intention to deceive and for the purpose of revealing something believed to be true.  Thus, there is merit to Bohm’s definition of metaphor as the simultaneous equating and negating of two concepts.  The central problem, therefore, is how the metaphorical description can be both true and false.  One possible answer is that metaphor is a kind of equivocation, and this proposal seems inevitable so long as meanings are viewed as simple wholes, such that the metaphorical description is completely true on its one meaning and completely false on its other.
          A more suggestive way to formulate the question is to ask how the metaphorical predication can be partially true and partially false rather than simply true and simply false simultaneously.  This suggests an alternative to simple equivocation, because it suggests that meanings have parts.  A metaphorical predication invokes only part of the meaning complex associated with the descriptive predicate, and it excludes the remainder of the meaning complex.  A speaker's conventional linguistic usage associates the entire meaning complex with the predicate term, and the metaphor is false if the term is predicated with its full and conventional semantics.  But the speaker or writer of the metaphor recognizes the part of the meaning which is truly predicated of the subject, and he implicitly expects the hearer or reader to suspend other parts of the predicate's semantics, while the speaker or writer uses the portion that he wishes for describing the subject.  A listener or reader may or may not succeed in understanding the metaphorical use of the predicated term depending on his ability to select the applicable parts of the predicate's semantics intended by the speaker or writer.  Some authors discussing metaphor, such as Max Black, render it as a kind of esoteric mode of speech, which cannot be reduced to literal language.  But in fact metaphors are explained in literal (i.e. conventional) terms to the uncomprehending listener or reader.  To explain the metaphorical predication of a descriptive term to a subject, is to list those sentences or clauses believed to be true of the subject, which may substitute for the predicated metaphor, and which set forth precisely those parts of the predicate's meaning that the issuer intends to be applicable.  And the explanation may also be elaborated by listing those sentences or clauses that are not believed to be true of the subject, but which are conventionally associated with the predicated term when it is predicated literally.  These negative sentences state what is intended to be excluded from the predicate's meaning complex in the metaphorical usage.
          For example to explain the metaphor "Man is a wolf", the speaker may say, "Man is a wolf, because man is ..., and man is ..., and...” where in the clauses he substitutes predicates that identify those characteristics of wolf that he intends to be applicable to man.  And if in this substitute predication he finds himself further using metaphorical descriptions, then the substitution process is repeated with other clauses, until the entire explanation is literal.  The explanation may be elaborated for clarity by the sentence "Man is not a wolf, because man is not..., and man is not..., and....”  Substitutions in this negative sentence results in subordinate clauses that have predicates describing characteristics conventionally associated with wolves, but which the issuer of the metaphor does not intend to be truly predicated of men.  The affirmative explanatory sentence sets forth those parts of the meaning associated with "wolf" that are intended to describe man in the metaphorical use of "wolf", and the negative explanatory sentence sets forth whatever parts of the conventional or literal meaning associated with "wolf" that the issuer intends to suspend for metaphorical purposes. Semantical change for the term "wolf" occurs when the metaphorical predication becomes conventional, and this produces an equivocation.  The equivocation consists of two literal meanings, the original one and a second meaning, which is now a dead metaphor.  As a dead man is no longer a man, so too a dead metaphor is no longer a metaphor; it is a meaning from which the suspended parts have become conventionally excluded to produce a second literal meaning.  The dead metaphor may also be a change of meaning in which the first meaning has become archaic.  This may occur in some cases of scientific discovery or theory development.  The new theory supersedes an old one, such that the old meaning becomes as archaic as the old theory containing it, and the new meaning eventually becomes the only conventional meaning applicable to the subject of the superseding theory.  However, the change cannot be a complete semantical change, if the fact that the new and old theories address the same subject cannot even be detected. The semantical change applies only to some parts of the term's meaning with other parts providing the needed semantical continuity, namely those supplied by statements of test design.
          Simile is similar to metaphor except that the occurrence of the terms “like” or “as” alerts the listener that only part of the meaning complex is applicable, and with explanatory elaboration it may furthermore inform him of which parts.  With the listener thus alerted, his awareness of the partial applicability of the predicate’s meaning complex enables him to retain the term’s conventional semantics.  Unlike metaphor the simile is not partly true and partly false, but is wholly true, if it is true at all, even if the expressed similarity signified by the applicable part of the meaning intended by the issuer of the simile, is not the same as the meaning part selected by the listener.  Thus the simile "Man is like the wolf" may be explained with the sentence "Man is like the wolf, because man is..., or man is..., or.…”  The terms “like” or “as” alone only inform the listener that the full meaning of “wolf” is not applicable, but the added “because…” clause explains what parts of the meaning complex are applicable.
          Consider next analogy.  In a conventional generic sense the term “analogy” might include metaphor and simile, because they are all figures of speech expressing similarity.  But in its more restrictive sense based on the idea of a grammatical form, it is a compound sentence having two independent clauses connected with the conjunction “as”.  The typical form is “A is to B as C is to D.”  For example: “The electron is to the atomic nucleus as a planet is to the sun.”  This sentence may have appended to it a subordinate “because” clause explaining the underlying similarity consisting of both electrons and planets moving in orbits around a center having a relatively greater mass.  There may be many such explanatory clauses explaining various underlying similarities, and perhaps also describing dissimilarities.  Hesse’s thesis of positive, negative, and neutral analogy would seem to pertain to such explanatory clauses.  The positive analogy is what is expressed in the explanatory clauses, the negative analogy is what is expressed in the clauses describing dissimilarities, and the neutral analogy consists either in what is not yet considered, or more usefully what is actually considered and expressed with much more hypothetical attitude than the affirmed similarities and dissimilarities.  It is the neutral analogy that Hesse considers to be of distinctive value for formulating scientific theories as hypotheses proposed for testing.  In the research context, instead of the literary or poetic context motivated by aesthetic considerations, the central feature of the analogy statement is that one of the independent clauses connected by “as” is believed to be true with a high degree of confidence if not conviction, while the credence status of the other independent clause is much more hypothetical in the judgment of the issuer.  Historically in the above example of analogy, the solar-system description involving planets in orbits around the sun was believed much more firmly than the description of the atom in terms of electrons moving in orbits around the nucleus of the atom, which at the time was a much more tentative hypothesis.  And semantically the predicate “planet” in the clause with the higher degree of credence has the idea of orbits built into its associated meaning complex, while the more hypothetical attitude toward the description of the atom deprived the predicate “electron” of the idea of orbits as a component part.
          Both metaphor and simile too may be said to have positive, negative, and neutral aspects in the context of scientific discovery.  The positive aspect of either a metaphor or a simile consists of those parts of the meaning complex associated with the predicate term that are also conventionally included in the meaning complex associated with the subject term, and that are the basis for the affirmed similarity.  Conversely the negative aspect consists of those parts of the meaning complex associated with the predicate term that are not also conventionally included in the meaning complex associated with the subject term.  And the neutral aspect consists of those parts of the meaning complex that the issuer has not considered in connection with the meaning complex associated with the subject term, but which he may consider at a later time.  As a figure of speech, this later consideration involves reflection on the semantics associated conventionally with the predicate terms.  But if the later consideration involves new empirical research either by formulating a new hypothesis or by examination or consideration of a test outcome, then there is a semantical change that has not yet become conventional.  For example at one time a proposed metaphor was “the electron is a small orbiting planet”, and the corresponding simile is “the electron is like a small orbiting planet.”  At that time these components of meaning were not conventionally included in the concept of electron.

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