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  1. Measure for Measure: Operationalising Cognitive Realism.Majid D. Beni - 2024 - Minds and Machines 34 (3):1-16.
    This paper develops a measure of realism from within the framework of cognitive structural realism (CSR). It argues that in the context of CSR, realism can be operationalised in terms of balance between accuracy and generality. More specifically, the paper draws on the free energy principle to characterise the measure of realism in terms of the balance between accuracy and generality.
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  • Imitation in automata and robots: A philosophical case study on Kempelen.Lukas Geiszler - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 100 (C):22-31.
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  • Frameworks, models, and case studies: a new methodology for studying conceptual change in science and philosophy.Matteo De Benedetto - 2022 - Dissertation, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München
    This thesis focuses on models of conceptual change in science and philosophy. In particular, I developed a new bootstrapping methodology for studying conceptual change, centered around the formalization of several popular models of conceptual change and the collective assessment of their improved formal versions via nine evaluative dimensions. Among the models of conceptual change treated in the thesis are Carnap’s explication, Lakatos’ concept-stretching, Toulmin’s conceptual populations, Waismann’s open texture, Mark Wilson’s patches and facades, Sneed’s structuralism, and Paul Thagard’s conceptual revolutions. (...)
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  • On the Continuity of Geometrized Newtonian Gravitation and General Relativity.Saeed Masoumi - 2021 - Foundations of Physics 51 (2):1-33.
    Pessimistic meta-induction is a powerful argument against scientific realism, so one of the major roles for advocates of scientific realism will be trying their best to give a sustained response to this argument. On the other hand, it is also alleged that structural realism is the most plausible form of scientific realism; therefore, the plausibility of scientific realism is threatened unless one is given the explicit form of a structural continuity and minimal structural preservation for all our current theories. This (...)
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  • Mathematical Representation and Explanation: structuralism, the similarity account, and the hotchpotch picture.Ziren Yang - 2020 - Dissertation, University of Leeds
    This thesis starts with three challenges to the structuralist accounts of applied mathematics. Structuralism views applied mathematics as a matter of building mapping functions between mathematical and target-ended structures. The first challenge concerns how it is possible for a non-mathematical target to be represented mathematically when the mapping functions per se are mathematical objects. The second challenge arises out of inconsistent early calculus, which suggests that mathematical representation does not require rigorous mathematical structures. The third challenge comes from renormalisation group (...)
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  • Semantic realism in the semantic conception of theories.Quentin Ruyant - 2020 - Synthese 198 (8):7965-7983.
    Semantic realism can be characterised as the idea that scientific theories are truth-bearers, and that they are true or false in virtue of the world. This notion is often assumed, but rarely discussed in the literature. I examine how it fares in the context of the semantic view of theories and in connection with the literature on scientific representation. Making sense of semantic realism requires specifying the conditions of application of theoretical models, even for models that are not actually used, (...)
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  • The Benacerraf Problem as a Challenge for Ontic Structural Realism.Majid Davoody Beni - 2020 - Philosophia Mathematica 28 (1):35-59.
    Benacerraf has presented two problems for the philosophy of mathematics. These are the problem of identification and the problem of representation. This paper aims to reconstruct the latter problem and to unpack its undermining bearing on the version of Ontic Structural Realism that frames scientific representations in terms of abstract structures. I argue that the dichotomy between mathematical structures and physical ones cannot be used to address the Benacerraf problem but strengthens it. I conclude by arguing that versions of OSR (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • Models of’ versus ‘Models for.Julia Gouvea & Cynthia Passmore - 2017 - Science & Education 26 (1-2):49-63.
    The inclusion of the practice of “developing and using models” in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and in the Next Generation Science Standards provides an opportunity for educators to examine the role this practice plays in science and how it can be leveraged in a science classroom. Drawing on conceptions of models in the philosophy of science, we bring forward an agent-based account of models and discuss the implications of this view for enacting modeling in science classrooms. Models, according (...)
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  • Interweaving categories: Styles, paradigms, and models.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (4):628-639.
    Analytical categories of scientific cultures have typically been used both exclusively and universally. For instance, when styles of scientific research are employed in attempts to understand and narrate science, styles alone are usually employed. This article is a thought experiment in interweaving categories. What would happen if rather than employ a single category, we instead investigated several categories simultaneously? What would we learn about the practices and theories, the agents and materials, and the political-technological impact of science if we analyzed (...)
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  • Imagination in scientific modeling.Adam Toon - 2016 - In Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Imagination. New York: Routledge. pp. 451-462.
    Modeling is central to scientific inquiry. It also depends heavily upon the imagination. In modeling, scientists seem to turn their attention away from the complexity of the real world to imagine a realm of perfect spheres, frictionless planes and perfect rational agents. Modeling poses many questions. What are models? How do they relate to the real world? Recently, a number of philosophers have addressed these questions by focusing on the role of the imagination in modeling. Some have also drawn parallels (...)
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  • (3 other versions)Models and representation.Roman Frigg & James Nguyen - 2017 - In Lorenzo Magnani & Tommaso Bertolotti (eds.), Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science. Springer. pp. 49-102.
    Scientific discourse is rife with passages that appear to be ordinary descriptions of systems of interest in a particular discipline. Equally, the pages of textbooks and journals are filled with discussions of the properties and the behavior of those systems. Students of mechanics investigate at length the dynamical properties of a system consisting of two or three spinning spheres with homogenous mass distributions gravitationally interacting only with each other. Population biologists study the evolution of one species procreating at a constant (...)
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  • Modelling as Indirect Representation? The Lotka–Volterra Model Revisited.Tarja Knuuttila & Andrea Loettgers - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4):1007-1036.
    ABSTRACT Is there something specific about modelling that distinguishes it from many other theoretical endeavours? We consider Michael Weisberg’s thesis that modelling is a form of indirect representation through a close examination of the historical roots of the Lotka–Volterra model. While Weisberg discusses only Volterra’s work, we also study Lotka’s very different design of the Lotka–Volterra model. We will argue that while there are elements of indirect representation in both Volterra’s and Lotka’s modelling approaches, they are largely due to two (...)
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  • Keeping quiet on the ontology of models.Steven French - 2010 - Synthese 172 (2):231-249.
    Stein once urged us not to confuse the means of representation with that which is being represented. Yet that is precisely what philosophers of science appear to have done at the meta-level when it comes to representing the practice of science. Proponents of the so-called ‘syntactic’ view identify theories as logically closed sets of sentences or propositions and models as idealised interpretations, or ‘theoruncula, as Braithwaite called them. Adherents of the ‘semantic’ approach, on the other hand, are typically characterised as (...)
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  • (1 other version)Models and fiction.Roman Frigg - 2007 - Synthese 172 (2):251-268.
    Most scientific models are not physical objects, and this raises important questions. What sort of entity are models, what is truth in a model, and how do we learn about models? In this paper I argue that models share important aspects in common with literary fiction, and that therefore theories of fiction can be brought to bear on these questions. In particular, I argue that the pretence theory as developed by Walton (1990, Mimesis as make-believe: on the foundations of the (...)
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  • Theories: Tools versus models.Mauricio Suárez & Nancy Cartwright - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39 (1):62-81.
    In “The Toolbox of Science” (1995) together with Towfic Shomar we advocated a form of instrumentalism about scientific theories. We separately developed this view further in a number of subsequent works. Steven French, James Ladyman, Otavio Bueno and Newton Da Costa (FLBD) have since written at least eight papers and a book criticising our work. Here we defend ourselves. First we explain what we mean in denying that models derive from theory – and why their failure to do so should (...)
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  • Superconductivity and structures: revisiting the London account.Steven French & James Ladyman - 1997 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 28 (3):363-393.
    Cartwright and her collaborators have elaborated a provocative view of science which emphasises the independence from theory &unknown;in methods and aims&unknown; of phenomenological model building. This thesis has been supported in a recent paper by an analysis of the London and London model of superconductivity. In the present work we begin with a critique of Cartwright's account of the relationship between theoretical and phenomenological models before elaborating an alternative picture within the framework of the partial structures version of the semantic (...)
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  • A non representationalist view of model explanation.Ashley Graham Kennedy - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (2):326-332.
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  • Models and Maps: An Essay on Epistemic Representation.Gabriele Contessa - manuscript
    This book defends a two-tiered account of epistemic representation--the sort of representation relation that holds between representations such as maps and scientific models and their targets. It defends a interpretational account of epistemic representation and a structural similarity account of overall faithful epistemic representation.
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  • The role of symmetry in the interpretation of physical theories.Adam Caulton - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B):153-162.
    The symmetries of a physical theory are often associated with two things: conservation laws and representational redundancies. But how can a physical theory's symmetries give rise to interesting conservation laws, if symmetries are transformations that correspond to no genuine physical difference? In this article, I argue for a disambiguation in the notion of symmetry. The central distinction is between what I call "analytic" and "synthetic" symmetries, so called because of an analogy with analytic and synthetic propositions. "Analytic" symmetries are the (...)
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  • The Propensity Interpretation of Probability: A Re-evaluation.Joseph Berkovitz - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (S3):629-711.
    Single-case and long-run propensity theories are among the main objective interpretations of probability. There have been various objections to these theories, e.g. that it is difficult to explain why propensities should satisfy the probability axioms and, worse, that propensities are at odds with these axioms, that the explication of propensities is circular and accordingly not informative, and that single-case propensities are metaphysical and accordingly non-scientific. We consider various propensity theories of probability and their prospects in light of these objections. We (...)
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  • Varieties of noise: Analogical reasoning in synthetic biology.Tarja Knuuttila & Andrea Loettgers - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 48:76-88.
    The picture of synthetic biology as a kind of engineering science has largely created the public understanding of this novel field, covering both its promises and risks. In this paper, we will argue that the actual situation is more nuanced and complex. Synthetic biology is a highly interdisciplinary field of research located at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology, and computational science. All of these fields provide concepts, metaphors, mathematical tools, and models, which are typically utilized by synthetic biologists by (...)
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  • The Structure of Scientific Theories.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2015 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Scientific inquiry has led to immense explanatory and technological successes, partly as a result of the pervasiveness of scientific theories. Relativity theory, evolutionary theory, and plate tectonics were, and continue to be, wildly successful families of theories within physics, biology, and geology. Other powerful theory clusters inhabit comparatively recent disciplines such as cognitive science, climate science, molecular biology, microeconomics, and Geographic Information Science (GIS). Effective scientific theories magnify understanding, help supply legitimate explanations, and assist in formulating predictions. Moving from their (...)
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  • Modeling without models.Arnon Levy - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (3):781-798.
    Modeling is an important scientific practice, yet it raises significant philosophical puzzles. Models are typically idealized, and they are often explored via imaginative engagement and at a certain “distance” from empirical reality. These features raise questions such as what models are and how they relate to the world. Recent years have seen a growing discussion of these issues, including a number of views that treat modeling in terms of indirect representation and analysis. Indirect views treat the model as a bona (...)
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  • The semantic conception and the structuralist view of theories: A critique of Suppe’s criticisms.Pablo Lorenzano - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (4):600-607.
    Different conceptions of scientific theories, such as the state spaces approach of Bas van Fraassen, the phase spaces approach of Frederick Suppe, the set-theoretical approach of Patrick Suppes, and the structuralist view of Joseph Sneed et al. are usually put together into one big family. In addition, the definite article is normally used, and thus we speak of the semantic conception of theories and of its different approaches . However, in The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism , starting (...)
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  • Partial Truth and Visual Evidence.Otávio Bueno - 2011 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 15 (2):249.
    Newton da Costa and Steven French have argued that the concept of partial truth plays an important role in our understanding of significant aspects of scientific practice: from the status of scientific theories through the understanding of inconsistency in science to the nature of induction (see da Costa and French 2003). In this paper, I use the concept of partial truth and the associated framework of partial structures to offer a formulation of the concept of visual evidence, and I examine (...)
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  • Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask.Roman Frigg & Ioannis Votsis - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (2):227-276.
    Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask Content Type Journal Article Pages 227-276 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0025-7 Authors Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE UK Ioannis Votsis, Philosophisches Institut, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Geb. 23.21/04.86, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 2.
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  • What’s Right with a Syntactic Approach to Theories and Models?Sebastian Lutz - 2010 - Erkenntnis (S8):1-18.
    Syntactic approaches in the philosophy of science, which are based on formalizations in predicate logic, are often considered in principle inferior to semantic approaches, which are based on formalizations with the help of structures. To compare the two kinds of approach, I identify some ambiguities in common semantic accounts and explicate the concept of a structure in a way that avoids hidden references to a specific vocabulary. From there, I argue that contrary to common opinion (i) unintended models do not (...)
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  • Scientific Models and Representation.Gabriele Contessa - 2011 - In Steven French & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Continuum. pp. 120--137.
    My two daughters would love to go tobogganing down the hill by themselves, but they are just toddlers and I am an apprehensive parent, so, before letting them do so, I want to ensure that the toboggan won’t go too fast. But how fast will it go? One way to try to answer this question would be to tackle the problem head on. Since my daughters and their toboggan are initially at rest, according to classical mechanics, their final velocity will (...)
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  • Representing Reality: The Ontology of Scientific Models and Their Representational Function.Gabriele Contessa - 2007 - Dissertation, University of London
    Today most philosophers of science believe that models play a central role in science and that one of the main functions of scientific models is to represent systems in the world. Despite much talk of models and representation, however, it is not yet clear what representation in this context amounts to nor what conditions a certain model needs to meet in order to be a representation of a certain system. In this thesis, I address these two questions. First, I will (...)
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  • Introduction.Gabriele Contessa - 2010 - Synthese 172 (2):193-195.
    In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.
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  • Models, Pictures, and Unified Accounts of Representation: Lessons from Aesthetics for Philosophy of Science.Stephen M. Downes - 2009 - Perspectives on Science 17 (4):417-428.
    Several prominent philosophers of science, most notably Ron Giere, propose that scientific theories are collections of models and that models represent the objects of scientific study. Some, including Giere, argue that models represent in the same way that pictures represent. Aestheticians have brought the picturing relation under intense scrutiny and presented important arguments against the tenability of particular accounts of picturing. Many of these arguments from aesthetics can be used against accounts of representation in philosophy of science. I rely on (...)
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  • The epistemological virtues of assumptions: towards a coming of age of Boltzmann and Meinong’s objections to ‘the prejudice in favour of the actual’?Nadine de Courtenay - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (1):41-57.
    Two complementary debates of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century are examined here: the debate on the legitimacy of hypotheses in the natural sciences and the debate on intentionality and ‘representations without object’ in philosophy. Both are shown to rest on two core issues: the attitude of the subject and the mode of presentation chosen to display a domain of phenomena. An orientation other than the one which contributed to shape twentieth-century philosophy of science is explored through the (...)
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  • Models, Representation, and Mediation.Tarja Knuuttila - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1260-1271.
    Representation has been one of the main themes in the recent discussion of models. Several authors have argued for a pragmatic approach to representation that takes users and their interpretations into account. It appears to me, however, that this emphasis on representation places excessive limitations on our view of models and their epistemic value. Models should rather be thought of as epistemic artifacts through which we gain knowledge in diverse ways. Approaching models this way stresses their materiality and media-specificity. Focusing (...)
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  • (1 other version)Scientific representation and the semantic view of theories.Roman Frigg - 2006 - Theoria 21 (1):49-65.
    It is now part and parcel of the official philosophical wisdom that models are essential to the acquisition and organisation of scientific knowledge. It is also generally accepted that most models represent their target systems in one way or another. But what does it mean for a model to represent its target system? I begin by introducing three conundrums that a theory of scientific representation has to come to terms with and then address the question of whether the semantic view (...)
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  • What is structural empiricism? Scientific change in an empiricist setting.Otávio Bueno - 1999 - Erkenntnis 50 (1):55-81.
    In this paper a constructive empiricist account of scientific change is put forward. Based on da Costa's and French's partial structures approach, two notions of empirical adequacy are initially advanced (with particular emphasis on the introduction of degrees of empirical adequacy). Using these notions, it is shown how both the informativeness and the empirical adequacy requirements of an empiricist theory of scientific change can then be met. Finally, some philosophical consequences with regard to the role of structures in this context (...)
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  • The strategy of model-based science.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2006 - Biology and Philosophy 21 (5):725-740.
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  • On representing the relationship between the mathematical and the empirical.Otávio Bueno, Steven French & James Ladyman - 2002 - Philosophy of Science 69 (3):497-518.
    We examine, from the partial structures perspective, two forms of applicability of mathematics: at the “bottom” level, the applicability of theoretical structures to the “appearances”, and at the “top” level, the applicability of mathematical to physical theories. We argue that, to accommodate these two forms of applicability, the partial structures approach needs to be extended to include a notion of “partial homomorphism”. As a case study, we present London's analysis of the superfluid behavior of liquid helium in terms of Bose‐Einstein (...)
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  • Scientific representation: Against similarity and isomorphism.Mauricio Suárez - 2003 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (3):225-244.
    I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that similarity and isomorphism are not the constituents of scientific representation. I (...)
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  • The logical structure of modular semantic theories of software systems.Nicola Angius & Petros Stefaneas - 2024 - Metaphilosophy 55 (3):440-456.
    This paper studies the structure of semantic theories over modular computational systems and applies the algebraic Theory of Institutions to provide a logical representation of such theories. A modular semantic theory is here defined by a cluster of semantic theories, each for a single program's module, and by a set of relations connecting models of different semantic theories. A semantic theory of a single module is provided in terms of the set of ∑‐models mapped from the category Th of ∑‐theories (...)
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  • How do different interpretations work together in a single scientific explanatory project? A case study of the Olami-Feder-Christensen model of earthquakes.Hernán Bobadilla - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (3):1-29.
    Interpretation plays a central role in using scientific models to explain natural phenomena: Meaning must be bestowed upon a model in terms of what it is and what it represents to be used for model explanations. However, it remains unclear how capacious and complex interpretation in models can be, particularly when conducted by the same group of scientists in the context of one explanatory project. This paper sheds light upon this question by examining modelling and explanatory practices related to the (...)
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  • Verstehen verstehen. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Untersuchung.Federica Isabella Malfatti - 2023 - Berlin, Deutschland: Schwabe Verlag.
    Wir Menschen streben danach, die Wirklichkeit zu verstehen. Eine Welt, die wir gut verstehen, ist eine, die wir "im Griff" haben, mit der wir gut umgehen können. Aber was heißt es genau, ein Phänomen der Wirklichkeit zu verstehen? Wie sieht unser Weltbild aus, wenn wir ein Phänomen verstanden haben? Welche Bedingungen müssen erfüllt sein, damit Verstehen gelingt? Die Kernthese des Buches ist, dass wir Phänomene der Wirklichkeit durch noetische Integration verstehen. Wir verstehen Phänomene, indem wir den entsprechenden Informationseinheiten eine sinnvolle (...)
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  • Models, Fictions and Artifacts.Tarja Knuuttila - 2021 - In Wenceslao J. Gonzalez (ed.), Language and Scientific Research. Springer Verlag. pp. 199-22.
    This paper discusses modeling from the artifactual perspective. The artifactual approach conceives models as erotetic devices. They are purpose-built systems of dependencies that are constrained in view of answering a pending scientific question, motivated by theoretical or empirical considerations. In treating models as artifacts, the artifactual approach is able to address the various languages of sciences that are overlooked by the traditional accounts that concentrate on the relationship of representation in an abstract and general manner. In contrast, the artifactual approach (...)
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  • The semantic view of theories and higher-order languages.Laurenz Hudetz - 2017 - Synthese 196 (3):1131-1149.
    Several philosophers of science construe models of scientific theories as set-theoretic structures. Some of them moreover claim that models should not be construed as structures in the sense of model theory because the latter are language-dependent. I argue that if we are ready to construe models as set-theoretic structures (strict semantic view), we could equally well construe them as model-theoretic structures of higher-order logic (liberal semantic view). I show that every family of set-theoretic structures has an associated language of higher-order (...)
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  • Generalizing Empirical Adequacy II: Partial Structures.Sebastian Lutz - 2021 - Synthese 198 (2):1351-1380.
    I show that extant attempts to capture and generalize empirical adequacy in terms of partial structures fail. Indeed, the motivations for the generalizations in the partial structures approach are better met by the generalizations via approximation sets developed in “Generalizing Empirical Adequacy I”. Approximation sets also generalize partial structures.
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  • Representing in the Student Laboratory.Brandon Boesch - 2018 - Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 5:34-48.
    In this essay, I will expand the philosophical discussion about the representational practice in science to examine its role in science education through four case studies. The cases are of what I call ‘educational laboratory experiments’, performative models used representationally by students to come to a better understanding of theoretical knowledge of a scientific discipline. The studies help to demonstrate some idiosyncratic features of representational practices in science education, most importantly a lack of novelty and discovery built into the ELEs (...)
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  • Reconstructing Probabilistic Realism: Re-enacting Syntactical Structures.Majid Davoody Beni - 2020 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (2):293-313.
    Probabilistic realism and syntactical positivism were two among outdated theories that Feigl criticised on account of their semantical poverty. In this paper, I argue that a refined version of probabilistic realism, which relies on what Feigl specified as the pragmatic description of the symbolic behaviour of scientists’ estimations and foresight, is defendable. This version of statistical realism does not need to make the plausibility of realist thesis dependent on the conventional acceptance of a constructed semantic metalanguage. I shall rely on (...)
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  • A ‘Semantic’ View of Scientific Models for Science Education.Agustín Adúriz-Bravo - 2013 - Science & Education 22 (7):1593-1611.
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  • Mathematics is not the only language in the book of nature.James Nguyen & Roman Frigg - 2017 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 24):1-22.
    How does mathematics apply to something non-mathematical? We distinguish between a general application problem and a special application problem. A critical examination of the answer that structural mapping accounts offer to the former problem leads us to identify a lacuna in these accounts: they have to presuppose that target systems are structured and yet leave this presupposition unexplained. We propose to fill this gap with an account that attributes structures to targets through structure generating descriptions. These descriptions are physical descriptions (...)
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  • On the pragmatic equivalence between representing data and phenomena.James Nguyen - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (2):171- 191.
    Van Fraassen argues that data provide the target-end structures required by structuralist accounts of scientific representation. But models represent phenomena not data. Van Fraassen agrees but argues that there is no pragmatic difference between taking a scientific model to accurately represent a physical system and accurately represent data extracted from it. In this article I reconstruct his argument and show that it turns on the false premise that the pragmatic content of acts of representation include doxastic commitments.
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