Abstract
I explore a challenge that idealisations pose to scientific realism and argue that the realist can best accommodate idealisations by capitalising on certain modal features of idealised models that are underwritten by laws of nature.
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Notes
- 1.
A lot has been written about modal aspects of idealisations. I will not attempt to relate my point of view here to the broader context of the Poznań school and the verisimilitude literature, for example. See Niiniluoto (2007) for a review.
- 2.
To be clear, Sorensen himself notes that idealisations only ‘appear’ to challenge scientific realism, and he does not endorse the instrumentalist conclusion in the offing. I will review Sorensen's reasoning in §3.
- 3.
See McMullin (1985):
If the original model merely ‘saved the appearances’ without in any way approximating to the structure of the object whose behavior is under scrutiny, there would be no reason why this reversal of a simplifying assumption, motivated by the belief that the object does possess something like the structure attributed to it, would work as it does. Taking the model seriously as an approximately true account is what leads us to expect the correction to produce a verifiable prediction. The fact that formal idealisation rather consistently does work in this way is a strong argument for a moderate version of scientific realism. (p. 262)
- 4.
McMullin (1985) distinguishes three different types of Galilean idealisations.
- 5.
- 6.
Schematically: [(P1)] Suppose \( P \).
[(P2)] From \( P \) derive \( Q \).
[------------]
[(C)] Conclude that if \( P \) then \( Q \).
- 7.
The realist faces the epistemic challenge of justifying her knowledge of the target-as-it-actually-is, of course, but this issue has nothing to do with idealisation per se.
- 8.
It is possible that more can be said on behalf of the structuralist analysis of idealisation, and the partial structures analysis of idealisations can well be a useful part of a bigger picture, of course.
- 9.
There are questions about the modelling practice that specifically involve idealisations: for example, is the endemic and carefree employment of idealisations in tension with realism? My way of framing the idealisation-challenge focuses on models themselves, not the modelling practice.
- 10.
Some of these models have animated much discussion in the realism debate, such as Fresnel’s elastic ether model of the partial refraction and reflection of light, used to derive the so-called Fresnel’s equations. See Saatsi (2005).
- 11.
By ‘entailing’ I mean not only logical entailment, but also metaphysical entailment, such as the relationship between determinate and corresponding determinable properties. If facts about such relationships can be packed into the background assumptions we can ensure logical entailment, of course.
- 12.
This has connotations of robustness analysis of idealised models (see e.g. Odenbaugh 2011). Exploring the connections to the literature on robustness analysis requires further work. (Thanks to Arnon Levy for flagging this question for me).
- 13.
The realist can then claim that derivations of successful predictions involve such inferences, and thus involve the veridical assumptions. Cf. Saatsi (2005) for related discussion in connection with Fresnel's model of light.
- 14.
See Strevens’s (2008) discussion of the disjunction problem in connection with his difference-making account of causal explanation that operates by abstraction.
- 15.
See e.g. Melia (2000) and Saatsi (forthcoming).
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Acknowledgments
A version of this paper was presented at a workshop on Models and Inferences in Science in Rome. Thanks to the workshop audience, as well as James Fraser, Steven French, and especially Arnon Levy, for helpful comments.
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Saatsi, J. (2016). Models, Idealisations, and Realism. In: Ippoliti, E., Sterpetti, F., Nickles, T. (eds) Models and Inferences in Science. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28163-6_10
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