Abstract
Bas van Fraassen’s recent endorsement of empiricist structuralism is based on a particular approach to representation. He sharply distinguishes between what makes a scientific model M a successful representation of its target T from what makes M a representation of T and not of some other different target T’. van Fraassen maintains that embedment (i.e.: a particular sort of isomorphism which relates structures) gives the answer to the first question while the user’s decision to employ model M to represent T accounts for the representational link. After discussing the rationale for this approach, I defend that indexical constraints like those favoured by van Fraassen cannot be the last word concerning what makes a scientific model a representation of something in particular. Rather, I argue that (i) the representational role of models — at least of scientific models — is inextricably related to their ability to convey some knowledge about their purported target, and (ii) this is an effective constraint on the user’s decisions. Both claims cast some doubt on the aforementioned distinction insofar as not only success in representation, but also the existence of a representational relation, is rooted in our knowledge about the target.
This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (research project FFI2008-01169).
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- 1.
- 2.
For a discrepant view, see Knuuttila 2005, where it is argued that in order to understand modeling in scientific practice, the focus on representation is unnecessary limiting.
- 3.
See, however, Callender and Cohen 2006.
- 4.
van Fraassen 1989, p. 222. This is a strong formulation that tries to keep distance from a “partially linguistic” view on models. See below, footnote 12.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Giere 1988, p. 80. Giere’s views have evolved to an intentional conception of similarity and representation as we will see below.
- 9.
van Fraassen 1997, p. 528. For a “partially linguistic” account of models, they are not bare mathematical structures, but a sort of mixed compound: structure plus linguistic interpretation. Although both alternatives — pure structuralism and partial linguisticism — have room within the semantic approach to scientific theories, structuralists like van Fraassen forcefully insist that their option is radically different from the classical syntacticist view of theories. The technical question at issue is the possibility of a first-order axiomatization of the class of models whereby the theory is identified. Pure structuralism rejects this possibility. See Da Costa and French 2003, chap. 2, and Suárez 2005, par. 3.
- 10.
In what follows I will put aside operations since they can be reduced to relations: an operation taking n arguments is equivalent to a n + 1 place relation.
- 11.
It should be noticed that for van Fraassen measuring is “a practical form of representation presupposing a prior theoretical representation,” van Fraassen 2010, pp. 512–513. Chapters 5 to 8 of Scientific representation are devoted to this issue.
- 12.
- 13.
More than thirty years ago van Fraassen claimed that empirical adequacy for theoretical models involves embedding (see his The scientific image, p. 45 and p. 64). In Scientific representation, however, he introduces substantial changes on his old view. Firstly, he emphasizes that embedding is not enough to account for the models’ ability in representing phenomena since the agents as user plays a crucial role. Secondly, phenomena themselves have no structure in contrast to models.
- 14.
- 15.
van Fraassen 2008, p. 239. This is a radical departure from realist — a synonym for “metaphysical,” according to van Fraassen — interpretations of structuralism, such as Ladyman and French’s ontic structuralism (see above, footnote 14).
- 16.
- 17.
“…the basic aim [of science] — equivalently, the base-line criterion of success — is empirical adequacy rather than overall truth, and that acceptance of a scientific theory has a pragmatic dimension (to guide action and research) but need involve no more belief than that the theory is empirically adequate.” van Fraassen 2008, p. 3. This idea was van Fraassen’s motto in The scientific image. For a criticism on the alleged redundancy of belief in scientific practice, see Iranzo 2002.
- 18.
On the insufficiency of the structuralist account of knowledge see Psillos 2006, pp. 566 and ff., where it is argued that identification of structures depends on knowledge about non-structural properties of the object that “fill” the structures.
- 19.
The idea that a structure can represent a target system only with respect to a certain description of it that is true is argued from a different perspective in Frigg 2006, 55 and ff.
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Iranzo, V. (2014). Models and Phenomena: Bas van Fraassen’s Empiricist Structuralism. In: Gonzalez, W.J. (eds) Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science. Synthese Library, vol 368. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7838-2_3
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