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Notes
In this paper I will not worry about the case of actual physical models constructed in the lab, such as model wings in wind tunnels. These seem to me to be of secondary importance, when they are truly distinct from the kinds of models discussed here. Some other treatments of models in philosophy of science take care to include these cases, however (e.g., Griesemer 1990).
See also Thompson-Jones (2006) for a careful and useful discussion of these aims; he makes a further distinction within this general project, between richer and more trivial senses in which something can function as a truth-making structure.
French and Ladyman (1999) is a more recent defence of the semantic view that emphasizes, again, the importance of language-independence.
For me, this quote in Suppes (1960) exemplifies where things went wrong. “It is true that many physicists want to think of a model of the orbital theory of the atom as being more than a certain kind of set-theoretical entity. They envisage it as being a very concrete physical thing built on the analogy of the solar system. I think it is important to point out that there is no real incompatibility in these viewpoints. To formally define a model as a set-theoretical entity which is a certain kind of ordered tuple consisting of a set of objects and relations and operations on these objects is not to rule out the physical model of the kind which is appealing to physicists, for the physical model may simply be taken to define the set of objects in the set-theoretical model.” (Suppes 1960, p. 290)
Another treatment of models in science, distinct from both the semantic view and Nersessian’s project, is the “models as mediators” approach of Morgan and Morrison (1999), which is related also to Cartwright’s work (1999). Morgan and Morrison see models as “mediating instruments,” partially autonomous from both theory and real-world phenomena. I am unsure how to treat the relations between their view and mine, but the idea of the “autonomy” of model from theory seems different from, and more specific than, the idea of a strategy of indirect represention via similarity between model and target.
The recently discovered “canine transmissible venereal tumour” is a fascinating exception.
I can find only two exceptions in the book, two places where deliberately fictional model cases are introduced. One is a three-page passage outlining some processes in the Cambrian that are admitted as “fantasy” (pp. 79–81) and the other is a footnote in which Buss describes and extends an elegant thought-experiment by Medawar, concerning the evolution of aging (p. 143).
Yet a third and more recent book on the same topic, Michod’s Darwinian Dynamics (1999) is based almost entirely around formal mathematical models with well-defined state-spaces. Michod focuses on the same “middle” transitions as Buss.
Buss’ methodology is nicely encapsulated in his acknowledgements, where he thanks a teacher (J. Jackson) for teaching him to see the endless mass of detail in comparative biology as “fodder upon which any truly general idea will ravenously feed” (p. xi).
This does not hold of much earlier discussions of models in science, like Hesse’s work (1966). But in that work, models were seen as adjuncts (perhaps very important ones) to the core structure of a scientific theory.
The first, central model is criticized in Godfrey-Smith (1996, Chapter 9).
Weisberg suggests that this could be done by embedding the three models within a single richer state space.
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to all those present at the Penn conference, but especially to Michael Weisberg and Deena Skolnick, for comments on these ideas.
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Godfrey-Smith, P. The strategy of model-based science. Biol Philos 21, 725–740 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-006-9054-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-006-9054-6