Abstract
While much debate about scientific realism concerns the issue of whether it is compatible with theory change over time, and certain forms of selective realism have been suggested with this in mind, this chapter considers a closely related challenge for realism: that of articulating how a theory should be interpreted at any given time. In a crucial respect the challenges posed by diachronic and synchronic interpretation are the same; in both cases, realists face an apparent dilemma. The thinner their interpretations, the easier realism is to defend, but at the cost of more substantial commitment. The more substantial their interpretations, the more difficult they are to defend. The chapter looks at this worry in the context of the Standard Model of particle physics. Examining some selective realist attempts at interpretation, it argues that realism is, in fact, compatible with different commitments on the spectrum of thinner to more substantial, thus mitigating the dilemma.