Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Models and representation.Richard Hughes - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (4):336.
    A general account of modeling in physics is proposed. Modeling is shown to involve three components: denotation, demonstration, and interpretation. Elements of the physical world are denoted by elements of the model; the model possesses an internal dynamic that allows us to demonstrate theoretical conclusions; these in turn need to be interpreted if we are to make predictions. The DDI account can be readily extended in ways that correspond to different aspects of scientific practice.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   209 citations  
  • An inferential conception of scientific representation.Mauricio Suárez - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):767-779.
    This paper defends an inferential conception of scientific representation. It approaches the notion of representation in a deflationary spirit, and minimally characterizes the concept as it appears in science by means of two necessary conditions: its essential directionality and its capacity to allow surrogate reasoning and inference. The conception is defended by showing that it successfully meets the objections that make its competitors, such as isomorphism and similarity, untenable. In addition the inferential conception captures the objectivity of the cognitive representations (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   254 citations  
  • Modelling and representing: An artefactual approach to model-based representation.Tarja Knuuttila - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (2):262-271.
    The recent discussion on scientific representation has focused on models and their relationship to the real world. It has been assumed that models give us knowledge because they represent their supposed real target systems. However, here agreement among philosophers of science has tended to end as they have presented widely different views on how representation should be understood. I will argue that the traditional representational approach is too limiting as regards the epistemic value of modelling given the focus on the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   136 citations  
  • 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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   205 citations  
  • Scientific representation, interpretation, and surrogative reasoning.Gabriele Contessa - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (1):48-68.
    In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perform valid (but not necessarily sound) surrogative inferences from the model to the system. The main difference between the interpretational conception I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   112 citations  
  • Twilight of the perfect model model.Paul Teller - 2001 - Erkenntnis 55 (3):393-415.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   169 citations  
  • Void and Object.David K. Lewis - 2004 - In John Collins, Ned Hall & Laurie Paul (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals. MIT Press. pp. 277-290.
    The void is deadly. If you were cast into a void, it would cause you to die in just a few minutes. It would suck the air from your lungs. It would boil your blood. It would drain the warmth from your body. And it would inflate enclosures in your body until they burst}.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   110 citations  
  • (1 other version)Scientific representation.Mauricio Suárez - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (1):91-101.
    Scientific representation is a currently booming topic, both in analytical philosophy and in history and philosophy of science. The analytical inquiry attempts to come to terms with the relation between theory and world; while historians and philosophers of science aim to develop an account of the practice of model building in the sciences. This article provides a review of recent work within both traditions, and ultimately argues for a practice-based account of the means employed by scientists to effectively achieve representation (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   91 citations  
  • Asymptotics and the role of minimal models.Robert W. Batterman - 2002 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (1):21-38.
    A traditional view of mathematical modeling holds, roughly, that the more details of the phenomenon being modeled that are represented in the model, the better the model is. This paper argues that often times this ‘details is better’ approach is misguided. One ought, in certain circumstances, to search for an exactly solvable minimal model—one which is, essentially, a caricature of the physics of the phenomenon in question.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   98 citations  
  • Built-in justification.Marcel J. Boumans - unknown
    In several accounts of what models are and how they function a specific view dominates. This view contains the following characteristics. First, there is a clear-cut distinction between theories, models and data and secondly, empirical assessment takes place after the model is built. This view in which discovery and justification are disconnected is not in accordance with several practices of mathematical business-cycle model building. What these practices show is that models have to meet implicit criteria of adequacy, such as satisfying (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   66 citations  
  • Mathematical models: Questions of trustworthiness.Adam Morton - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (4):659-674.
    I argue that the contrast between models and theories is important for public policy issues. I focus especially on the way a mathematical model explains just one aspect of the data.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   83 citations  
  • A model‐theoretic account of representation (or, I don't know much about art…but I know it involves isomorphism).Steven French - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (5):1472-1483.
    Discussions of representation in science tend to draw on examples from art. However, such examples need to be handled with care given a) the differences between works of art and scientific theories and b) the accommodation of these examples within certain philosophies of art. I shall examine the claim that isomorphism is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation and I shall argue that there exist accounts of representation in both art and science involving isomorphism which accommodate the apparent counterexamples and, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   75 citations  
  • Symmetry in intertheory relations.M. L. G. Redhead - 1975 - Synthese 32 (1-2):77 - 112.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   66 citations  
  • Models and mathematics in physics: The role of group theory.Steven French - 1999 - In Jeremy Butterfield & Constantine Pagonis (eds.), From Physics to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 187--207.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   62 citations  
  • Modelling nature: Between physics and the physical world.Margaret C. Morrison - 1998 - Philosophia Naturalis 35 (1):65-85.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Representing with imaginary models: Formats matter.Marion Vorms - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (2):287-295.
    Models such as the simple pendulum, isolated populations, and perfectly rational agents, play a central role in theorising. It is now widely acknowledged that a study of scientific representation should focus on the role of such imaginary entities in scientists’ reasoning. However, the question is most of the time cast as follows: How can fictional or abstract entities represent the phenomena? In this paper, I show that this question is not well posed. First, I clarify the notion of representation, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Models in physics.Mary B. Hesse - 1953 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 4 (15):198-214.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Overextending partial structures: Idealization and abstraction.Christopher Pincock - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1248-1259.
    The partial structures program of da Costa, French and others offers a unified framework within which to handle a wide range of issues central to contemporary philosophy of science. I argue that the program is inadequately equipped to account for simple cases where idealizations are used to construct abstract, mathematical models of physical systems. These problems show that da Costa and French have not overcome the objections raised by Cartwright and Suárez to using model‐theoretic techniques in the philosophy of science. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Manipulative success and the unreal.Axel Gelfert - 2003 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (3):245-263.
    In its original form due to Ian Hacking, entity realism postulates a criterion of manipulative success which replaces explanatory virtue as the criterion of justified scientific belief. The article analyses the foundations on which this postulate rests and identifies the conditions on which one can derive a form of entity realism from it. It then develops in detail an extensive class of counterexamples, drawing on the notion of quasi-particles in condensed matter physics. While the phenomena associated with quasi-particles pass the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Overextending Partial Structures: Idealization and Abstraction.Chris Pincock - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1248-1259.
    The partial structures program of da Costa, French and others offers a unified framework within which to handle a wide range of issues central to contemporary philosophy of science. I argue that the program is inadequately equipped to account for simple cases where idealizations are used to construct abstract, mathematical models of physical systems. These problems show that da Costa and French have not overcome the objections raised by Cartwright and Suárez to using model-theoretic techniques in the philosophy of science. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • How to do things with theories: an interactive view of language and models in science.Robin F. Hendry & Stathis Psillos - 2007 - In Jerzy Brzezinski, Andrzej Klawiter, Theo A. F. Kuipers, Krzysztof Lastowski, Katarzyna Paprzycka & Piotr Przybysz (eds.), The Courage of Doing Philosophy: Essays Dedicated to Leszek Nowak. Rodopi. pp. 123--157.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Rigorous results, cross-model justification, and the transfer of empirical warrant: the case of many-body models in physics.Axel Gelfert - 2009 - Synthese 169 (3):497-519.
    This paper argues that a successful philosophical analysis of models and simulations must accommodate an account of mathematically rigorous results. Such rigorous results may be thought of as genuinely model-specific contributions, which can neither be deduced from fundamental theory nor inferred from empirical data. Rigorous results provide new indirect ways of assessing the success of models and simulations and are crucial to understanding the connections between different models. This is most obvious in cases where rigorous results map different models on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Conditions on the Use of the One-dimensional Heat Equation.Chris Pincock - unknown
    This paper explores the conditions under which scientists are warranted in adding the one-dimensional heat equation to their theories and then using the equation to describe particular physical situations. Summarizing these derivation and application conditions motivates an account of idealized scientific representation that relates the use of mathematics in science to interpretative questions about scientific theories.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Scientific realism in action: Molecular models and Boltzmann's bildtheorie.Henk Regt - 2005 - Erkenntnis 63 (2):205 - 230.
    This paper approaches the scientific realism question from a naturalistic perspective. On the basis of a historical case study of the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann on the kinetic theory of gases, it shows that scientists’ views about the epistemological status of theories and models typically interact with their scientific results. Subsequently, the implications of this result for the current realism debate are analysed. The case study supports Giere’s moderately realist view of scientific models and theories, based (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Lessons from Galileo: The pragmatic model of shared characteristics of scientific representation.Steffen Ducheyne - 2005 - Philosophia Naturalis 42 (2):213-234.
    In this paper I will defend a new account of scientific representation. I will begin by looking at the benefits and drawbacks of two recent accounts on scientific representation: Hughes’ DDI account and Suárez’ inferential account. Next I use some of Galileo’s models in the Discorsi as a heuristic tool for a better account of scientific representation. Next I will present my model. The main idea of my account, which I refer to as the pragmatic model of shared characteristics (PMSC), (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Scientific realism in action: molecular models and Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie.Regt H. W. De - unknown
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Scientific Realism in Action: Molecular Models and Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie. [REVIEW]Henk W. de Regt - 2005 - Erkenntnis 63 (2):205-230.
    This paper approaches the scientific realism question from a naturalistic perspective. On the basis of a historical case study of the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann on the kinetic theory of gases, it shows that scientists’ views about the epistemological status of theories and models typically interact with their scientific results. Subsequently, the implications of this result for the current realism debate are analysed. The case study supports Giere’s moderately realist view of scientific models and theories, based (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations