TOWARDS A CATEGORIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC MODELS

In Models and Inferences in Science, ed. E. Ippoliti, T. Nickles, & F. Sterpetti, pp. 95-112. Springer, 2016

With regard to science, one may speak of models in different senses. The two main ones are models of science and models in science. A model of science is a representation of how scientists build their theories, a model in science is a representation of empirical objects, phenomena, or processes of some area of science. In this article I will describe and compare four models of science: the analytic-synthetic model, the hypothetico-deductive model, the semantic model, and the analytic model. Then I will discuss to what extent each of these models of science is capable of accounting for models in science.

2022

Models and theories are of central importance in science. Scientists spend substantial amounts of time building, testing, comparing and revising models and theories, and significant parts of many journal articles are concerned with exploring their features. It is therefore not surprising that the nature of scientific models and theories has been a widely debated topic within the philosophy of science for many years. The aim of this book is to provide an accessible and yet critical introduction to the debates about models and theories within analytical philosophy of science since the 1920s. The book is intended to be intelligible to advanced undergraduate students in philosophy, as well as to philosophically-minded scientists. I hope, however, that it will also be of interest to professional philosophers. The book presupposes no formal training, but it requires casual familiarity with formal logic and a recollection of the broad contours of high school science. I briefly explain logical and scientific concepts when they are first invoked, but these explanations are intended as reminders and do not double as introductions to the subject. The book has been in the works for the better part of the last two decades, and during this time I have acquired debts that are uncomfortably high. The book has its origins in my PhD thesis, which was written under the supervision of Nancy Cartwright and Carl Hoefer. Their support and encouragement were crucial not only for completing the thesis but also for deciding to write this book.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020

2011

Abstract In this paper we discuss two approaches to the axiomatization of scientific theories in the context of the so called semantic approach, according to which (roughly) a theory can be seen as a class of models. The two approaches are associated respectively to Suppes' and to da Costa and Chuaqui's works.

Principia: an international journal of epistemology

The use of models of scientific theories should not be done without qualifications about the mathematics being used to build the models. This looks obvious, at least for logicians, but generally, it is not to the philosopher of science. Thus, some details about this point seem useful for both. Since any quick revision in the literature shows that in most cases, mainly after the raising of the semantic approach (to scientific theories), the models are taken to be set-theoretical structures, in discussing the issue we shall be concerned more with set theories, the locus where the play is usually developed (yet sometimes unconsciously).

Principia, 2007

The world science describes tends to have a very strange look. We can't see atoms or force fields, nor are they imaginable within visualizable categories, so neither can we even imagine what the world must be like according to recent physical theories. That tension, between what science depicts as reality and how things appear to us, though it is more striking now, has been with us since modern science began. It can be addressed, and perhaps alleviated by inquiring into how science represents nature. In general, representation is selective, the selection is of what is relevant to the purpose at hand, and success may even require distortion. From this point of view, the constraint on science, that it must 'save the phenomena', takes on a new form. The question to be faced is how the perspectival character of the appearances (that is, contents of measurement outcomes) can be related to the hidden structure that the sciences postulate. In the competing interpretations of quantum mechanics we can see how certain traditional ideals and constraints are left behind. Specifically, Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics offers a probative example of the freedom of scientific representation. Abstract Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism -the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do existand constructive empiricism -the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science.

1970

2000

REPRESENTATION MODELS AS DEVICES FOR SCIENTIFIC THEORY APPLICATIONS V5. THE SEMANTIC VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES: The Case of Models of the Nuclear Structure Analyses of the nature and structure of scientific theories have predominantly focused on formalisation. The Received View of scientific theories considers theories as axiomatised sets of sentences. In Hilbert-style formalisation theories are considered formal axiomatic calculi to which interpretation is supplied by a set of correspondence rules. The Received View has long been abandoned. The Semantic View of scientific theories also considers theories as formal systems. In the Semantic conception, a theory is identified with the class of intended models of the formal language, if the theory were to be given such linguistic form. The proponents of the Semantic View, however, hold that this class of models can be directly defined without recourse to a formal language. Just like its predecessor, the Semantic View is also not free of untenable implications. The uniting feature of the arguments in this work is the topic of theoretical representation of phenomena. The Semantic View implies that theoretical representation comes about by the use of some model, which belongs to the class that constitutes the theory. However, this is not what we see when we scrutinise the features of actual representation models in physics. In this work particular emphasis is given to how representation models are constructed in Classical Mechanics and Nuclear Physics and what conceptual resources are used in their construction. The characteristics that these models demonstrate instruct us that to regard them as families of theoretical models, as the Semantic View purports, is to obscure how they are constructed, what is used for their construction, how they function and how they relate to the theory. For instance, representation models are devices that frequently postulate physical mechanisms for which the theory does not provide explanations. Thus it seems more appropriate to claim that these representation devices mediate between theory and experiment, and at the same time possess a partial independence from theory. Furthermore, when we focus our attention to the ways by which representation models are constructed we discern that they are the result of the processes of abstraction and concrétisation. These processes are operative in theoretical representation and they demand our attention if we are to explicate how theories represent phenomena in their domains. A cknowledgements I wish to thank my supervisor, Colin Howson, for reading and criticising several earlier versions of this work, and for his patience and help during the earlier more confused times. But I owe Colin Howson a lot more, I only hope to have benefited from his acute observation skills. I would also like to thank Stathis Psillos, John Worrall, Craig Callender, Jeff Ketland and Margaret Morrison, who read earlier versions of parts of this work and offered invaluable comments. Finally, my thanks go to Antigone Nounou, George Portides and Kristin Ross for their generous help at different stages. 6.3 Further Remarks on Idealisation: The Process of Abstraction and Concrétisation 6.3.1 A Terminological Change: Abstraction and Concrétisation 196 6.3.2 The Process of Abstraction and Concrétisation 201 6.4 Conclusion Bibliography Following Suppe, let TC be the conjunction of T and C, where T is the conjunction of the theoretical postulates and C is the conjunction of the correspondence rules. Then TC designates the scientific theory that is based on L, T, and C. The above sketch of the RV contains many features the rationale and implications of which shall not be treated here. Indeed, I shall limit myself only to those features of the RV that are relevant to the main criticisms. The above version of the Received View, as well as previous versions of it, has been criticised inter alia on the following grounds: (1) On its reliance on an observation-theory distinction and in addition on an analytic-synthetic distinction. (2) On its employment of a correspondence-rule account of the interpretation of theoretical terms. (3) On its commitment to a theory consistency condition and to a meaning invariance condition. (4) On the fact that it obscures a number of epistemologically important features of scientific theories. (5) On the fact that it assigns a deductive status to empirical theories. Although the conclusive power of these criticisms is, as will be seen, doubtful, collectively they have been persuasive among philosophers of science and as a result the Logical Positivist analysis of scientific theories gradually gave room to other schools of thought.

Page 1. Décio Krause LANGUAGES, STRUCTURES, AND MODELS OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e ee ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ V = 〈V,∈〉 e e e ee ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡¡ D ε(D) A = 〈D,rı〉 On World Congress and School on Universal Logic III Lisbon 18-25 April 2010 Florian´opolis 2010 Page 2. ii My To Mercedes. Page 3. iii (Blanck) “[Scientific concepts] are free creations of human mind and are not, however, it may seen, uniquely determined by the external world.” (Einstein & Infeld (1938), p.33) Page 4. iv Page 5.