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Scientific representation and dissimilarity

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Abstract

In this essay, I examine the role of dissimilarity in scientific representation. After briefly reviewing some of the philosophical literature which places a strong emphasis on the role of similarity, I turn to examine some work from Carroll and Borges which demonstrates that perfect similarity is not valuable in the representational use of maps. Expanding on this insight, I go on to argue that this shows that dissimilarity is an important part of the representational use of maps—a point I then extend to the case of scientific representation. Relying on some work from Latour, I argue that dissimilarity plays an essential role in representational practice, by providing novel forms of manipulation and use which affords the achievement of various epistemic and nonepistemic aims. After showing how this point connects to some other literature on scientific representation, I discuss some examples of the value of dissimilarity in the use of representational vehicles. Overall, I argue that to understand scientific representation, we will need to consider more than just similarity. We will need to explore dissimilarities as well.

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Notes

  1. For an overview of the literature on scientific representation, see Boesch (2015), Suárez (2015b) and Frigg and Nguyen (2016a).

  2. Though I will not discuss it here, Umberto Eco discusses the same theme in greater detail, “On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on Scale 1 to 1” (Eco 1995, pp. 95–106).

  3. Translation mine.

  4. It is telling, I think, that Borges titled this story “Del rigor en la ciencia” (“On Rigor in Science”), indicating perhaps that his aim was not cartographers but rather a statement about how we should understand the value of exactitude in science.

  5. Most commonly, a map will be smaller in scale than its target, but this need not be the case. For example, a map of an ant hill in a children’s book about anthropomorphized ants would be valuable in virtue the fact that it is larger than its target. Similarly, a map which recreates a famous building or room may not involve any change in scale (though it still allows for a new perspective, since it allows someone to explore the building or room in a different context).

  6. The importance of the use of maps matches well with much of what Wittgenstein says about maps in various locations. For an analysis, see Wagner (2011).

  7. A similar point about the value of distortion is made by van Fraassen (2008, p. 14).

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  1. Department of Humanities, Morningside College, 1501 Morningside Ave, Sioux City, IA, 51106, USA

    Brandon Boesch

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Boesch, B. Scientific representation and dissimilarity. Synthese 198, 5495–5513 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02417-0

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