Abstract
This paper presents an artifactual approach to models that also addresses their fictional features. It discusses first the imaginary accounts of models and fiction that set model descriptions apart from imagined-objects, concentrating on the latter (e.g., Frigg in Synthese 172(2):251–268, 2010; Frigg and Nguyen in The Monist 99(3):225–242, 2016; Godfrey-Smith in Biol Philos 21(5):725–740, 2006; Philos Stud 143(1):101–116, 2009). While the imaginary approaches accommodate surrogative reasoning as an important characteristic of scientific modeling, they simultaneously raise difficult questions concerning how the imagined entities are related to actual representational tools, and coordinated among different scientists, and with real-world phenomena. The artifactual account focuses, in contrast, on the culturally established external representational tools that enable, embody, and extend scientific imagination and reasoning. While there are commonalities between models and fictions, it is argued that the focus should be on the fictional uses of models rather than considering models as fictions.
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29 November 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03866-w
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Natalia Carrillo and to the anonymous reviewers of this journal for valuable comments on previous drafts of this paper. An earlier version was presented at the conferences Modelling and Representation: How to make World(s) with Symbols, University of the Basque Country, and Idealizations, Fictions, and Values in Science workshop, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, and as an invited talk at Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, National Autonomous University of Mexico. This paper greatly benefited from the discussions in these conferences and seminars; many thanks go to the organizers and the participants. Last but not least, I am thankful to Sergio Martínez and his research group, as well as to Reijo Miettinen and his research group, for many inspiring discussions on artifacts in scientific research. This research was supported by the Academy of Finland, Grant No. 290079.
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Knuuttila, T. Imagination extended and embedded: artifactual versus fictional accounts of models. Synthese 198 (Suppl 21), 5077–5097 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1545-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1545-2