Perspectival models and theory unification
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (3):579-594 (2005)
| Abstract | Given that scientific realism is based on the assumption that there is a connection between a model's predictive success and its truth, and given the success of multiple incompatible models in scientific practice, the realist has a problem. When the different models can be shown to arise as different approximations to a unified theory, however, one might think the realist to be able to accommodate such cases. I discuss a special class of models (generated as non-uniform limits of a unified theory) and argue that a realist interpretation has to understand these models of a system as ‘perspectival’, in close analogy to different spatial perspectives onto the same object. For this sort of case, I also respond to Morrison's recent claim that in the process of unifying models into an overarching theory, explanatory and descriptive power are lost, leaving the unified theory with less of a claim to a realist interpretation than the models themselves. Introduction Perspectival models from singular perturbation problems Unification of perspectives without losses of explanatory power Perspectives as different levels of a system Perspectival models, idealizations and pluralism. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesStephan Hartmann & Roman Frigg (2006). Models in Science. In Ed Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford.
S. Ducheyne (2008). Towards an Ontology of Scientific Models. Metaphysica 9 (1):119-127.
Stephan Hartmann (1995). Models as a Tool for Theory Construction: Some Strategies of Preliminary Physics. In William Herfel et al (ed.), Theories and Models in Scientific Processes. Rodopi.
Alisa Bokulich (forthcoming). How Scientific Models Can Explain. Synthese:1--13.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads22 ( #56,171 of 549,065 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,252 of 549,065 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
