Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. What Kind of Explanations Do We Get from Agent-Based Models of Scientific Inquiry?Dunja Šešelja - 2022 - In Tomas Marvan, Hanne Andersen, Hasok Chang, Benedikt Löwe & Ivo Pezlar (eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology. London: College Publications.
    Agent-based modelling has become a well-established method in social epistemology and philosophy of science but the question of what kind of explanations these models provide remains largely open. This paper is dedicated to this issue. It starts by distinguishing between real-world phenomena, real-world possibilities, and logical possibilities as different kinds of targets which agent-based models can represent. I argue that models representing the former two kinds provide how-actually explanations or causal how-possibly explanations. In contrast, models that represent logical possibilities provide (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Cooperative Origins of Epistemic Rationality?Corey Dethier - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (3):1269-1288.
    Recently, both evolutionary anthropologists and some philosophers have argued that cooperative social settings unique to humans play an important role in the development of both our cognitive capacities and what Michael Tomasello terms the “construction” of “normative rationality” or “a normative point of view as a self-regulating mechanism.” In this article, I use evolutionary game theory to evaluate the plausibility of the claim that cooperation fosters epistemic rationality. Employing an extension of signal-receiver games that I term “telephone games,” I show (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Modelling Religious Signalling.Carl Brusse - 2019 - Dissertation, Australian National University
    The origins of human social cooperation confound simple evolutionary explanation. But from Darwin and Durkheim onward, theorists (anthropologists and sociologists especially) have posited a potential link with another curious and distinctively human social trait that cries out for explanation: religion. This dissertation explores one contemporary theory of the co-evolution of religion and human social cooperation: the signalling theory of religion, or religious signalling theory (RST). According to the signalling theory, participation in social religion (and its associated rituals and sanctions) acts (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Models and Explanation.Alisa Bokulich - 2017 - In Magnani Lorenzo & Bertolotti Tommaso Wayne (eds.), Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science. Springer. pp. 103-118.
    Detailed examinations of scientific practice have revealed that the use of idealized models in the sciences is pervasive. These models play a central role in not only the investigation and prediction of phenomena, but in their received scientific explanations as well. This has led philosophers of science to begin revising the traditional philosophical accounts of scientific explanation in order to make sense of this practice. These new model-based accounts of scientific explanation, however, raise a number of key questions: Can the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • The Efficiency Question in Economics.Northcott Robert - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (5):1140-1151.
    Much philosophical attention has been devoted to whether economic models explain, and more generally to how scientific models represent. Yet there is an issue more practically important to economics than either of these, which I label the efficiency question: regardless of how exactly models represent, or of whether their role is explanatory or something else, is current modeling practice an efficient way to achieve these goals – or should research efforts be redirected? In addition to showing how the efficiency question (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Robustness in evolutionary explanations: a positive account.Cédric Paternotte & Jonathan Grose - 2017 - Biology and Philosophy 32 (1):73-96.
    Robustness analysis is widespread in science, but philosophers have struggled to justify its confirmatory power. We provide a positive account of robustness by analysing some explicit and implicit uses of within and across-model robustness in evolutionary theory. We argue that appeals to robustness are usually difficult to justify because they aim to increase the likeliness that a phenomenon obtains. However, we show that robust results are necessary for explanations of phenomena with specific properties. Across-model robustness is necessary for how-possibly explanations (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology.Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.) - 2016 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Robustness and reality.Markus I. Eronen - 2015 - Synthese 192 (12):3961-3977.
    Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  • International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching.Michael R. Matthews (ed.) - 2014 - Springer.
    This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • How-Possibly Explanations in (Quantum) Computer Science.Michael E. Cuffaro - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):737-748.
    A primary goal of quantum computer science is to find an explanation for the fact that quantum computers are more powerful than classical computers. In this paper I argue that to answer this question is to compare algorithmic processes of various kinds and to describe the possibility spaces associated with these processes. By doing this, we explain how it is possible for one process to outperform its rival. Further, in this and similar examples little is gained in subsequently asking a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Idealization.Alkistis Elliott-Graves & Michael Weisberg - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (3):176-185.
    This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Biological Explanation.Angela Potochnik - 2013 - In Kostas Kampourakis (ed.), The Philosophy of Biology: a Companion for Educators. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 49-65.
    One of the central aims of science is explanation: scientists seek to uncover why things happen the way they do. This chapter addresses what kinds of explanations are formulated in biology, how explanatory aims influence other features of the field of biology, and the implications of all of this for biology education. Philosophical treatments of scientific explanation have been both complicated and enriched by attention to explanatory strategies in biology. Most basically, whereas traditional philosophy of science based explanation on derivation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • (1 other version)Hypothetical Pattern Idealization and Explanatory Models.Yasha Rohwer & Collin Rice - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (3):334-355.
    Highly idealized models, such as the Hawk-Dove game, are pervasive in biological theorizing. We argue that the process and motivation that leads to the introduction of various idealizations into these models is not adequately captured by Michael Weisberg’s taxonomy of three kinds of idealization. Consequently, a fourth kind of idealization is required, which we call hypothetical pattern idealization. This kind of idealization is used to construct models that aim to be explanatory but do not aim to be explanations.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  • Robustness analysis disclaimer: please read the manual before use!Jaakko Kuorikoski, Aki Lehtinen & Caterina Marchionni - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (6):891-902.
    Odenbaugh and Alexandrova provide a challenging critique of the epistemic benefits of robustness analysis, singling out for particular criticism the account we articulated in Kuorikoski et al.. Odenbaugh and Alexandrova offer two arguments against the confirmatory value of robustness analysis: robust theorems cannot specify causal mechanisms and models are rarely independent in the way required by robustness analysis. We address Odenbaugh and Alexandrova’s criticisms in order to clarify some of our original arguments and to shed further light on the properties (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • Robust! -- Handle with care.Wybo Houkes & Krist Vaesen - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (3):1-20.
    Michael Weisberg has argued that robustness analysis is useful in evaluating both scientific models and their implications and that robustness analysis comes in three types that share their form and aim. We argue for three cautionary claims regarding Weisberg's reconstruction: robustness analysis may be of limited or no value in evaluating models and their implications; the unificatory reconstruction conceals that the three types of robustness differ in form and role; there is no confluence of types of robustness. We illustrate our (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Competition Theory and Channeling Explanation.Christopher H. Eliot - 2011 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 3 (20130604):1-16.
    The complexity and heterogeneity of causes influencing ecology’s domain challenge its capacity to generate a general theory without exceptions, raising the question of whether ecology is capable, even in principle, of achieving the sort of theoretical success enjoyed by physics. Weber has argued that competition theory built around the Competitive Exclusion Principle (especially Tilman’s resource-competition model) offers an example of ecology identifying a law-like causal regularity. However, I suggest that as Weber presents it, the CEP is not yet a causal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The Unity of Robustness: Why Agreement Across Model Reports is Just as Valuable as Agreement Among Experiments.Corey Dethier - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (7):2733-2752.
    A number of philosophers of science have argued that there are important differences between robustness in modeling and experimental contexts, and—in particular—many of them have claimed that the former is non-confirmatory. In this paper, I argue for the opposite conclusion: robust hypotheses are confirmed under conditions that do not depend on the differences between and models and experiments—that is, the degree to which the robust hypothesis is confirmed depends on precisely the same factors in both situations. The positive argument turns (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • (1 other version)Possibilist Explanation: Explaining How-Possibly Through Laws.Gustavo A. Castañon - 2021 - Erkenntnis:835-852.
    ‘Possibilist Explanation’ is a promising account of scientific explanation which avoids the familiar problems of “how-possibly explanations”. It explains an event by showing how-actually it was epistemically possible, instead of why it was epistemically necessary. Its explanandum is the epistemic possibility of an actual event previously considered epistemically impossible. To define PE, two new concepts are introduced: ‘permissive condition’ and ‘possibilist law’. A permissive condition for an event is something that does not entail the event itself, but a necessary condition (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Understanding (with) Toy Models.Alexander Reutlinger, Dominik Hangleiter & Stephan Hartmann - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (4):1069-1099.
    Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models concerns what the epistemic goal of toy modelling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this article is to precisely articulate and to defend this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   50 citations  
  • Factive scientific understanding without accurate representation.Collin C. Rice - 2016 - Biology and Philosophy 31 (1):81-102.
    This paper analyzes two ways idealized biological models produce factive scientific understanding. I then argue that models can provide factive scientific understanding of a phenomenon without providing an accurate representation of the features of their real-world target system. My analysis of these cases also suggests that the debate over scientific realism needs to investigate the factive scientific understanding produced by scientists’ use of idealized models rather than the accuracy of scientific models themselves.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Reconceiving Eliminative Inference.Patrick Forber - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (2):185-208.
    Eliminative reasoning seems to play an important role in the sciences, but should it be part of our best theory of science? Statistical evidence, prevalent across the sciences, causes problems for eliminative inference, supporting the view that probabilistic theories of confirmation provide a better framework for reasoning about evidence. Here I argue that deductive elimination has an important inferential role to play in science, one that is compatible with probabilistic approaches to evidence. Eliminative inferences help frame testing problems, an essential (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Mathematical models of biological patterns: Lessons from Hamilton’s selfish herd.Christopher Pincock - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (4):481-496.
    Mathematical models of biological patterns are central to contemporary biology. This paper aims to consider what these models contribute to biology through the detailed consideration of an important case: Hamilton’s selfish herd. While highly abstract and idealized, Hamilton’s models have generated an extensive amount of research and have arguably led to an accurate understanding of an important factor in the evolution of gregarious behaviors like herding and flocking. I propose an account of what these models are able to achieve and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • (1 other version)Possibilist Explanation: Explaining How-Possibly Through Laws.Gustavo A. Castañon - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (4):835-852.
    Abstract‘Possibilist Explanation’ is a promising account of scientific explanation which avoids the familiar problems of “how-possibly explanations”. It explains an event by showing how-actually it was epistemically possible, instead of why it was epistemically necessary. Its explanandum is the epistemic possibility of an actual event previously considered epistemically impossible. To define PE, two new concepts are introduced: ‘permissive condition’ and ‘possibilist law’. A permissive condition for an event is something that does not entail the event itself, but a necessary condition (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A New Definition of “Artificial” for Two Artificial Sciences.Francesco Bianchini - 2021 - Foundations of Science 28 (1):401-417.
    In this article, I deal with a conceptual issue concerning the framework of two special sciences: artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, i.e. the distinction between the natural and the artificial (a long-lasting topic of history of scientific though since the ancient philosophy). My claim is that the standard definition of the “artificial” is no longer useful to describe some present-day artificial sciences, as the boundary between the natural and the artificial is not so sharp and clear-cut as it was in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Evaluating evidential pluralism in epidemiology: mechanistic evidence in exposome research.Stefano Canali - 2019 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 41 (1):4.
    In current philosophical discussions on evidence in the medical sciences, epidemiology has been used to exemplify a specific version of evidential pluralism. According to this view, known as the Russo–Williamson Thesis, evidence of both difference-making and mechanisms is produced to make causal claims in the health sciences. In this paper, I present an analysis of data and evidence in epidemiological practice, with a special focus on research on the exposome, and I cast doubt on the extent to which evidential pluralism (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Synthetic biology and the search for alternative genetic systems: Taking how-possibly models seriously.Koskinen Rami - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (3):493-506.
    Many scientific models in biology are how-possibly models. These models depict things as they could be, but do not necessarily capture actual states of affairs in the biological world. In contemporary philosophy of science, it is customary to treat how-possibly models as second-rate theoretical tools. Although possibly important in the early stages of theorizing, they do not constitute the main aim of modelling, namely, to discover the actual mechanism responsible for the phenomenon under study. In the paper it is argued (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Why We Cannot Learn from Minimal Models.Roberto Fumagalli - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (3):433-455.
    Philosophers of science have developed several accounts of how consideration of scientific models can prompt learning about real-world targets. In recent years, various authors advocated the thesis that consideration of so-called minimal models can prompt learning about such targets. In this paper, I draw on the philosophical literature on scientific modelling and on widely cited illustrations from economics and biology to argue that this thesis fails to withstand scrutiny. More specifically, I criticize leading proponents of such thesis for failing to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • The strategy of model building in climate science.Lachlan Douglas Walmsley - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):745-765.
    In the 1960s, theoretical biologist Richard Levins criticised modellers in his own discipline of population biology for pursuing the “brute force” strategy of building hyper-realistic models. Instead of exclusively chasing complexity, Levins advocated for the use of multiple different kinds of complementary models, including much simpler ones. In this paper, I argue that the epistemic challenges Levins attributed to the brute force strategy still apply to state-of-the-art climate models today: they have big appetites for unattainable data, they are limited by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Analogue Quantum Simulation: A Philosophical Prospectus.Dominik Hangleiter, Jacques Carolan & Karim P. Y. Thebault - unknown
    This paper provides the first systematic philosophical analysis of an increasingly important part of modern scientific practice: analogue quantum simulation. We introduce the distinction between `simulation' and `emulation' as applied in the context of two case studies. Based upon this distinction, and building upon ideas from the recent philosophical literature on scientific understanding, we provide a normative framework to isolate and support the goals of scientists undertaking analogue quantum simulation and emulation. We expect our framework to be useful to both (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • What Is the Epistemic Function of Highly Idealized Agent-Based Models of Scientific Inquiry?Daniel Frey & Dunja Šešelja - 2018 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (4):407-433.
    In this paper we examine the epistemic value of highly idealized agent-based models of social aspects of scientific inquiry. On the one hand, we argue that taking the results of such simulations as informative of actual scientific inquiry is unwarranted, at least for the class of models proposed in recent literature. Moreover, we argue that a weaker approach, which takes these models as providing only “how-possibly” explanations, does not help to improve their epistemic value. On the other hand, we suggest (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Understanding (With) Toy Models.Alexander Reutlinger, Dominik Hangleiter & Stephan Hartmann - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:axx005.
    Toy models are highly idealized and extremely simple models. Although they are omnipresent across scientific disciplines, toy models are a surprisingly under-appreciated subject in the philosophy of science. The main philosophical puzzle regarding toy models is that it is an unsettled question what the epistemic goal of toy modeling is. One promising proposal for answering this question is the claim that the epistemic goal of toy models is to provide individual scientists with understanding. The aim of this paper is to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   47 citations  
  • How could models possibly provide how-possibly explanations?Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 73:1-12.
    One puzzle concerning highly idealized models is whether they explain. Some suggest they provide so-called ‘how-possibly explanations’. However, this raises an important question about the nature of how-possibly explanations, namely what distinguishes them from ‘normal’, or how-actually, explanations? I provide an account of how-possibly explanations that clarifies their nature in the context of solving the puzzle of model-based explanation. I argue that the modal notions of actuality and possibility provide the relevant dividing lines between how-possibly and how-actually explanations. Whereas how-possibly (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • Epistemic and Objective Possibility in Science.Ylwa Sjölin Wirling & Till Grüne-Yanoff - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Scientists regularly make possibility claims. While philosophers of science are well aware of the distinction between epistemic and objective notions of possibility, we believe that they often fail to apply this distinction in their analyses of scientific practices that employ modal concepts. We argue that heeding this distinction will help further progress in current debates in the philosophy of science, as it shows that the debaters talk about different things, rather than disagree on the same issue. We first discuss how (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Understanding does not depend on (causal) explanation.Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2):18.
    One can find in the literature two sets of views concerning the relationship between understanding and explanation: that one understands only if 1) one has knowledge of causes and 2) that knowledge is provided by an explanation. Taken together, these tenets characterize what I call the narrow knowledge account of understanding. While the first tenet has recently come under severe attack, the second has been more resistant to change. I argue that we have good reasons to reject it on the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Derivational Robustness and Indirect Confirmation.Aki Lehtinen - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (3):539-576.
    Derivational robustness may increase the degree to which various pieces of evidence indirectly confirm a robust result. There are two ways in which this increase may come about. First, if one can show that a result is robust, and that the various individual models used to derive it also have other confirmed results, these other results may indirectly confirm the robust result. Confirmation derives from the fact that data not known to bear on a result are shown to be relevant (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Michael Ruse, The Gaïa hypothesis: science on a pagan planet: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013, 272 pp, $26.00. [REVIEW]Sébastien Dutreuil - 2014 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 36 (1):149-151.
    This article on the epistemology of computational models stems from an analysis of the Gaïa hypothesis. It begins with James Kirchner’s criticisms of the central computational model of GH: Daisyworld. Among other things, the model has been criticized for being too abstract, describing fictional entities and trying to answer counterfactual questions. For these reasons the model has been considered not testable and therefore not legitimate in science, and in any case not very interesting since it explores non actual issues. This (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Non-causal understanding with economic models: the case of general equilibrium.Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2017 - Journal of Economic Methodology 24 (3):297-317.
    How can we use models to understand real phenomena if models misrepresent the very phenomena we seek to understand? Some accounts suggest that models may afford understanding by providing causal knowledge about phenomena via how-possibly explanations. However, general equilibrium models, for example, pose a challenge to this solution since their contribution appears to be purely mathematical results. Despite this, practitioners widely acknowledge that it improves our understanding of the world. I argue that the Arrow–Debreu model provides a mathematical how-possibly explanation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Exploratory modeling and indeterminacy in the search for life.Franklin R. Jacoby - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (2):1-20.
    The aim of this article is to use a model from the origin of life studies to provide some depth and detail to our understanding of exploratory models by suggesting that some of these models should be understood as indeterminate. Models that are indeterminate are a type of exploratory model and therefore have extensive potential and can prompt new lines of research. They are distinctive in that, given the current state of scientific understanding, we cannot specify how and where the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Appraising Models Nonrepresentationally.Till Grüne-Yanoff - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):850-861.
    Many scientific models lack an established representation relation to actual targets and instead refer to merely possible processes, background conditions, and results. This article shows how such models can be appraised. On the basis of the discussion of how-possibly explanations, five types of learning opportunities are distinguished. For each of these types, an example—from economics, biology, psychology, and sociology—is discussed. Contexts and purposes are identified in which the use of a model offers a genuine opportunity to learn. These learning opportunities (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   50 citations  
  • What can bouncing oil droplets tell us about quantum mechanics?Peter W. Evans & Karim P. Y. Thébault - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-32.
    A recent series of experiments have demonstrated that a classical fluid mechanical system, constituted by an oil droplet bouncing on a vibrating fluid surface, can be induced to display a number of behaviours previously considered to be distinctly quantum. To explain this correspondence it has been suggested that the fluid mechanical system provides a single-particle classical model of de Broglie’s idiosyncratic ‘double solution’ pilot wave theory of quantum mechanics. In this paper we assess the epistemic function of the bouncing oil (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Volterra Principle Generalized.Tim Räz - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (4):737-760.
    Michael Weisberg and Kenneth Reisman argue that the Volterra Principle can be derived from multiple predator-prey models and that, therefore, the Volterra Principle is a prime example for robustness analysis. In the current article, I give new results regarding the Volterra Principle, extending Weisberg’s and Reisman’s work, and I discuss the consequences of these results for robustness analysis. I argue that we do not end up with multiple, independent models but rather with one general model. I identify the kind of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Appraising Non-Representational Models.Till Grüne-Yanoff - unknown
    Many scientific models are non-representational in that they refer to merely possible processes, background conditions and results. The paper shows how such non-representational models can be appraised, beyond the weak role that they might play as heuristic tools. Using conceptual distinctions from the discussion of how-possibly explanations, six types of models are distinguished by their modal qualities of their background conditions, model processes and model results. For each of these types, an actual model example – drawn from economics, biology, psychology (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Adaptationism.Steven Hecht Orzack - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • What good are abstract and what-if models? Lessons from the Gaïa hypothesis.Sébastien Dutreuil - 2014 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 36 (1):16-41.
    This article on the epistemology of computational models stems from an analysis of the Gaia hypothesis (GH). It begins with James Kirchner’s criticisms of the central computational model of GH: Daisyworld. Among other things, the model has been criticized for being too abstract, describing fictional entities (fictive daisies on an imaginary planet) and trying to answer counterfactual (what-if) questions (how would a planet look like if life had no influence on it?). For these reasons the model has been considered not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Fritz Allhoff: Philosophies of the Sciences: A Guide: Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 2010; xi + 371 pp, ISBN: 978-1-4051-995-7 (Pb). [REVIEW]Thomas A. C. Reydon - 2011 - Acta Biotheoretica 59 (3-4):319-325.
    Fritz Allhoff: Philosophies of the Sciences: A Guide Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 319-325 DOI 10.1007/s10441-011-9129-x Authors Thomas A. C. Reydon, Institute of Philosophy & Center for Philosophy and Ethics of Science (ZEWW), Leibniz Universität Hannover, Im Moore 21, 30161 Hannover, Germany Journal Acta Biotheoretica Online ISSN 1572-8358 Print ISSN 0001-5342 Journal Volume Volume 59 Journal Issue Volume 59, Numbers 3-4.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Allocating confirmation with derivational robustness.Aki Lehtinen - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2487-2509.
    Robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it is shown to depend on confirmed rather than disconfirmed assumptions. Although increasing the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it in such a case, robustness may also be irrelevant for confirmation, or may even disconfirm. Whether or not it confirms depends on the available data and on what other results have already been established.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Models, information and meaning.Dr Marc Artiga - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 82:101284.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Robustness, evidence, and uncertainty: an exploration of policy applications of robustness analysis.Nicolas Wüthrich - unknown
    Policy-makers face an uncertain world. One way of getting a handle on decision-making in such an environment is to rely on evidence. Despite the recent increase in post-fact figures in politics, evidence-based policymaking takes centre stage in policy-setting institutions. Often, however, policy-makers face large volumes of evidence from different sources. Robustness analysis can, prima facie, handle this evidential diversity. Roughly, a hypothesis is supported by robust evidence if the different evidential sources are in agreement. In this thesis, I strengthen the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark