Abstract
This paper relates the recent proposal that modeling is a distinct theoretical strategy based on indirect representation and analysis to the current discussion on scientific representation. I will argue that both the thesis of indirect representation and the pragmatist approach to scientific representation effectively decouple the model-target dyad, which has been the basic unit of analysis in the discussion on models and representation. As a result of this decoupling models could be considered independent objects with no predetermined ties to real-life systems. This, in turn, poses the question of how we are supposed to gain understanding and knowledge through models. I will suggest that this characteristically happens through indirect reasoning, in other words reasoning from the results derived from the models to the underlying mechanisms or structures of interest. I argue that this also accounts for the modal nature of models.
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Notes
- 1.
Although Godfrey-Smith (2006) discusses Giere’s (1988, 1999) views on models and representation, and Weisberg in turn goes quickly through several recent positions taken in the debate on scientific representation, settling for the observation that no consensus has emerged in that discussion.
- 2.
I am indebted to Paul Humphreys (2004) the idea of the unit of analysis: in an insightful way he has applied this notion, which plays an important role in the methodology of the social sciences, to the analysis of the computational science.
- 3.
Other authors have also recently suggested that models could be conceived of as independent objects, although by this they mean different things. Morrison and Morgan (1999) conceive of models as partly independent of theory and data. Knuuttila (2005) treats them as independent entities in the sense of loosening them from any predetermined representational relationships to real target systems. This comes close to what Weisberg and Godfrey-Smith mean by independence.
- 4.
In his work on robustness Weisberg has targeted the epistemic importance of model results and the ways of guaranteeing their generality (e.g., Weisberg 2006).
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Knuuttila, T. (2009). Some Consequences of the Pragmatist Approach to Representation. In: Suárez, M., Dorato, M., Rédei, M. (eds) EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3263-8_12
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