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  1. Simple theories of a messy world: Truth and explanatory power in nonlinear dynamics.Alexander Rueger & W. David Sharp - 1996 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1):93-112.
    Philosophers like Duhem and Cartwright have argued that there is a tension between laws' abilities to explain and to represent. Abstract laws exemplify the first quality, phenomenological laws the second. This view has both metaphysical and methodological aspects: the world is too complex to be represented by simple theories; supplementing simple theories to make them represent reality blocks their confirmation. We argue that both aspects are incompatible with recent developments in nonlinear dynamics. Confirmation procedures and modelling strategies in nonlinear dynamics (...)
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  • Models in physics.Michael Redhead - 1980 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31 (2):145-163.
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  • (1 other version)Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1966 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (3):190-191.
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  • (1 other version)The tool box of science: Tools for the building of models with a superconductivity example.Nancy Cartwright, Towfic Shomar & Mauricio Suárez - 1995 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 44:137-149.
    We call for a new philosophical conception of models in physics. Some standard conceptions take models to be useful approximations to theorems, that are the chief means to test theories. Hence the heuristics of model building is dictated by the requirements and practice of theory-testing. In this paper we argue that a theory-driven view of models can not account for common procedures used by scientists to model phenomena. We illustrate this thesis with a case study: the construction of one of (...)
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  • Defining chaos.Robert W. Batterman - 1993 - Philosophy of Science 60 (1):43-66.
    This paper considers definitions of classical dynamical chaos that focus primarily on notions of predictability and computability, sometimes called algorithmic complexity definitions of chaos. I argue that accounts of this type are seriously flawed. They focus on a likely consequence of chaos, namely, randomness in behavior which gets characterized in terms of the unpredictability or uncomputability of final given initial states. In doing so, however, they can overlook the definitive feature of dynamical chaos--the fact that the underlying motion generating the (...)
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  • Theories between theories: Asymptotic limiting intertheoretic relations.Robert W. Batterman - 1995 - Synthese 103 (2):171 - 201.
    This paper addresses a relatively common scientific (as opposed to philosophical) conception of intertheoretic reduction between physical theories. This is the sense of reduction in which one (typically newer and more refined) theory is said to reduce to another (typically older and coarser) theory in the limit as some small parameter tends to zero. Three examples of such reductions are discussed: First, the reduction of Special Relativity (SR) to Newtonian Mechanics (NM) as (v/c)20; second, the reduction of wave optics to (...)
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  • Cartwright and the Lying Laws of Physics.Ronald Laymon - 1989 - Journal of Philosophy 86 (7):353.
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  • 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.
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  • XIV*—The Butterfly Effect.Peter Smith - 1991 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 91 (1):247-268.
    Peter Smith; XIV*—The Butterfly Effect, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 91, Issue 1, 1 June 1991, Pages 247–268, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.
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  • Fragility and deterministic modelling in the exact sciences.R. K. Tavakol - 1991 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (2):147-156.
    The theoretical framework adopted in the exact sciences, for constructing and testing deterministic theories on the one hand, and modelling and analysis of observed phenomena on the other, is often implicitly assumed to be that of structural stability. In view of recent developments in nonlinear dynamics, it is argued here that in general it may not be possible to assume strict determinism and structural stability simultaneously; either strict determinism holds, in which case the fragility framework may turn out to be (...)
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