The received view of theories is a position in the philosophy of science

Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

 that identifies a scientific theory with a set of propositions which are considered to be linguistic objects, such as axioms

Axiom

In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...

. Frederick Suppe

Frederick Suppe

Frederick Suppe is a professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University of Maryland. He has prominent work in the philosophy of science including much work with the semantic view of theories...

 describes the position of the received view by saying that it identifies scientific theories with an "axiomatic calculi in which theoretical terms are given a partial observation interpretation by mean of correspondence rules." The received view is generally associated with the logical empiricists

Logical positivism

Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...

.

Recently, the received view of theories has been displaced by the semantic view of theories

Semantic view of theories

The semantic view of theories is a position in the philosophy of science that holds that a scientific theory can be identified with a collection of models...

as the dominant position in theory formulation in the philosophy of science.