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A philosophical position holding that the laws of physics are not descriptions of an independent reality but rather human constructions—useful tools for prediction, elegant summaries of regularities, or convenient fictions that help us navigate experience. Anti-realism about physical laws asserts that electrons, forces, and fields are concepts, not things; that equations describe our experience, not reality-in-itself; that scientific success doesn't require truth, just empirical adequacy. This position draws on the history of theory change (past theories were "true" but abandoned), underdetermination (multiple theories fit the same data), and the recognition that observation is theory-laden. Anti-realism doesn't deny that science works; it just denies that working proves correspondence to an independent reality. The laws are our maps, not the territory.
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