Models and Idealizations in Science

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction: Theories, Models, and Scientific Representations

   • Alejandro Cassini, Juan Redmond

   Pages 1-50

3. An Artifactual Perspective on Idealization: Constant Capacitance and the Hodgkin and Huxley Model

   • Natalia Carrillo, Tarja Knuuttila

   Pages 51-70

4. Informative Models: Idealization and Abstraction

   • Mauricio Suárez, Agnes Bolinska

   Pages 71-85

5. Deidealized Models

   • Alejandro Cassini

   Pages 87-113

6. Scientific Representation as Ensemble-Plus-Standing-For: A Moderate Fictionalist Account

   • José A. Díez

   Pages 115-131

7. Seven Myths About the Fiction View of Models

   • Roman Frigg, James Nguyen

   Pages 133-157

8. Bridging the Gap: The Artifactual View Meets the Fiction View of Models

   • Fiora Salis

   Pages 159-177

9. Models as Hypostatizations: The Case of Supervaluationism in Semantics

   • Manuel García-Carpintero

   Pages 179-197

10. Structural Representation and the Ontology of Models

    • Otávio Bueno

    Pages 199-216

11. Representation and Surrogate Reasoning: A Proposal from Dialogical Pragmatism

    • Juan Redmond

    Pages 217-234

12. Prediction and Explanation by Theoretical Models: An Instrumentalist Stance

    • Andrés Rivadulla

    Pages 235-248

13. Commented Bibliography on Models and Idealizations

    • Alejandro Cassini

    Pages 249-257

14. Back Matter

    Pages 259-270

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This book provides both an introduction to the philosophy of scientific modeling and a contribution to the discussion and clarification of two recent philosophical conceptions of models: artifactualism and fictionalism. These can be viewed as different stances concerning the standard representationalist account of scientific models. By better understanding these two alternative views, readers will gain a deeper insight into what a model is as well as how models function in different sciences.

Fictionalism has been a traditional epistemological stance related to antirealist construals of laws and theories, such as instrumentalism and inferentialism. By contrast, the more recent fictional view of models holds that scientific models must be conceived of as the same kind of entities as literary characters and places. This approach is essentially an answer to the ontological question concerning the nature of models, which in principle is not incompatible with a representationalistaccount of the function of models.

The artifactual view of models is an approach according to which scientific models are epistemic artifacts, whose main function is not to represent the phenomena but rather to provide epistemic access to them. It can be conceived of as a non-representationalist and pragmatic account of modeling, which does not intend to focus on the ontology of models but rather on the ways they are built and used for different purposes.

The different essays address questions such as the artifactual view of idealization, the use of information theory to elucidate the concepts of abstraction and idealization, the deidealization of models, the nature of scientific fictions, the structural account of representation and the ontological status of structures, the role of surrogative reasoning with models, and the use of models for explaining and predicting physical phenomena.

• Idealized Models
• Abstract Objects
• Idealizations in Science
• Fictional Models
• Artefacts
• Idealized Representations
• Fictionalism
• Models Building
• An Artifactual Approach to Modeling
• Idealization and Modeling
• Fiction View of Models
• Informative Models
• types of non-representationist views of scientific models
• fictionalism and artifactualism
• models function in different sciences
• traditional antirealist construals of scientific laws
• artifactualism
• non-representationist views of scientific models

• Department of Philosophy, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

  Alejandro Cassini

• Institute of Philosophy, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile

  Juan Redmond

Alejandro Cassini received his PhD in Philosophy from Buenos Aires University in 1990. He has been Visiting Scholar at Columbia University from 1998 to 2001. He presently is Regular Professor at the Philosophy Department of Buenos Aires University, where he teaches History and Philosophy of Science. He works as Senior Researcher at the Conicet (Argentina), where he leads a research group in the History and Philosophy of Physics.

 

Juan Redmond is full professor at the Universidad de Valparaíso, Institute oh Philosophy and research fellow at the Conicyt (Chile). He graduated in Philosophy at the University of Cuyo (Argentina), gathered a Master in Literature at the Faculty of Etudes Romanes by the Université de Lille (France), with a dissertation titled Fictions in the work of Jorge Luis Borges: for an artefactual approach, and a PhD in 2010 in Philosophy, at the University of Lille 3 (France), with a dissertation on a Dialogical logic of fictions.    

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