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Models and the locus of their truth

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Abstract

If models can be true, where is their truth located? Giere (Explaining science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998) has suggested an account of theoretical models on which models themselves are not truth-valued. The paper suggests modifying Giere’s account without going all the way to purely pragmatic conceptions of truth—while giving pragmatics a prominent role in modeling and truth-acquisition. The strategy of the paper is to ask: if I want to relocate truth inside models, how do I get it, what else do I need to accept and reject? In particular, what ideas about model and truth do I need? The case used as an illustration is the world’s first economic model, that of von Thünen (1826/1842) on agricultural land use in the highly idealized Isolated State.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy of Finland, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Uskali Mäki

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  1. Uskali Mäki
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Correspondence to Uskali Mäki.

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Versions of the paper have been presented at the Models and Simulations 2 Conference in Tilburg (October 2007), the European Philosophy Association Conference in Madrid (November 2007), Cambridge University (March 2008), the 35th Annual Philosophy of Science Conference (Dubrovnik, April 2008), Université de Paris I Sorbonne-Panthéon (May 2008), and University of Buenos Aires (October 2008). The author thanks the audiences of these events and the two anonymous referees for this journal for comments.

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Mäki, U. Models and the locus of their truth. Synthese 180, 47–63 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9566-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9566-0

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