The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling
The practice of science appears to involve “model-talk”. Scientists, one thinks, are in the business of giving accounts of reality. Scientists, in the process of furnishing such accounts, talk about what they call “models”. Philosophers of science have inspected what this talk of models suggests abo...
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MDPI AG
2024-10-01
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| Series: | Philosophies |
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| author | Anish Seal |
| author_facet | Anish Seal |
| author_sort | Anish Seal |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The practice of science appears to involve “model-talk”. Scientists, one thinks, are in the business of giving accounts of reality. Scientists, in the process of furnishing such accounts, talk about what they call “models”. Philosophers of science have inspected what this talk of models suggests about how scientific theories manage to represent reality. There are, it seems, at least three distinct philosophical views on the role of scientific models in science’s portrayal of reality: the abstractionist view, the indirect fictionalist view, and the direct fictionalist view. In this essay, I try to articulate a question about what makes a scientific model more or less appropriate for a specific domain of reality. More precisely, I ask, “What accounts for the fact that given a determinate target domain, some scientific models, but not others, are thought to be “appropriate” for that domain?” I then consider whether and the degree to which each of the mentioned views on scientific models institutes a satisfactory response to this question. I conclude that, amongst those views, the direct fictionalist view seems to have the most promising response. I then utilize this argument to develop a more precise account of the problem of differential importability, and ultimately offer a more general and less presumptive argument that the problem seems to be optimally solved by justifying comparative evaluation of model-importabilities solely in terms of comparative evaluations of what I characterize as models’ “holistic” predictive success. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f43c3dff05024ce0aa8ca65187fa6786 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2409-9287 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Philosophies |
| spelling | doaj-art-f43c3dff05024ce0aa8ca65187fa67862025-08-20T02:43:47ZengMDPI AGPhilosophies2409-92872024-10-019616410.3390/philosophies9060164The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific ModelingAnish Seal0Department of Sociology, Philosophy, and Anthropology (SPA), University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PJ, UKThe practice of science appears to involve “model-talk”. Scientists, one thinks, are in the business of giving accounts of reality. Scientists, in the process of furnishing such accounts, talk about what they call “models”. Philosophers of science have inspected what this talk of models suggests about how scientific theories manage to represent reality. There are, it seems, at least three distinct philosophical views on the role of scientific models in science’s portrayal of reality: the abstractionist view, the indirect fictionalist view, and the direct fictionalist view. In this essay, I try to articulate a question about what makes a scientific model more or less appropriate for a specific domain of reality. More precisely, I ask, “What accounts for the fact that given a determinate target domain, some scientific models, but not others, are thought to be “appropriate” for that domain?” I then consider whether and the degree to which each of the mentioned views on scientific models institutes a satisfactory response to this question. I conclude that, amongst those views, the direct fictionalist view seems to have the most promising response. I then utilize this argument to develop a more precise account of the problem of differential importability, and ultimately offer a more general and less presumptive argument that the problem seems to be optimally solved by justifying comparative evaluation of model-importabilities solely in terms of comparative evaluations of what I characterize as models’ “holistic” predictive success.https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/9/6/164ontology of scientific modelsimportabilitydifferential importabilityfictionalismabstractionismrealism |
| spellingShingle | Anish Seal The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling Philosophies ontology of scientific models importability differential importability fictionalism abstractionism realism |
| title | The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling |
| title_full | The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling |
| title_fullStr | The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling |
| title_short | The Problem of Differential Importability and Scientific Modeling |
| title_sort | problem of differential importability and scientific modeling |
| topic | ontology of scientific models importability differential importability fictionalism abstractionism realism |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/9/6/164 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT anishseal theproblemofdifferentialimportabilityandscientificmodeling AT anishseal problemofdifferentialimportabilityandscientificmodeling |