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Models and Representation

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Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science

Part of the book series: Springer Handbooks ((SHB))

Abstract

Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. We study models and thereby discover features of the phenomena they stand for. For this to be possible models must be representations: they can instruct us about the nature of reality only if they represent the selected parts or aspects of the world we investigate. This raises an important question: In virtue of what do scientific models represent their target systems? In this chapter we first disentangle five separate questions associated with scientific representation and offer five conditions of adequacy that any successful answer to these questions must meet. We then review the main contemporary accounts of scientific representation – similarity, isomorphism, inferentialist, and fictionalist accounts – through the lens of these questions. We discuss each of their attributes and highlight the problems they face. We finally outline our own preferred account, and suggest that it provides the most promising way of addressing the questions raised at the beginning of the chapter.

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Abbreviations

DDI:

denotation, demonstration, interpretation

DEKI:

denotation, exemplification, keying-up and imputation

ER:

epistemic representation

ERH:

external reality hypothesis

GG:

General Griceanism

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Acknowledgements

The authors are listed alphabetically; the chapter is fully collaborative. We would like to thank Demetris Portides and Fiora Salis for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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Frigg, R., Nguyen, J. (2017). Models and Representation. In: Magnani, L., Bertolotti, T. (eds) Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30526-4_3

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