Explaining with Models: The Role of Idealizations

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (4):383-392 (2015)
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Abstract

Because they contain idealizations, scientific models are often considered to be misrepresentations of their target systems. An important question is therefore how models can explain the behaviours of these systems. Most of the answers to this question are representationalist in nature. Proponents of this view are generally committed to the claim that models are explanatory if they represent their target systems to some degree of accuracy; in other words, they try to determine the conditions under which idealizations can be made without jeopardizing the representational function of models. In this article, we first outline several forms of this representationalist view. We then argue that this view, in each of these forms, omits an important role of idealizations: that of facilitating the identification of the explanatory components within a model. Via examination of a case study from contemporary astrophysics, we show that one way in which idealizations can do this is by creating a comparison case that s...

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Author Profiles

Ashley Kennedy
Florida Atlantic University
Julie Jebeile
University of Bern

Citations of this work

Concrete Scale Models, Essential Idealization, and Causal Explanation.Christopher Pincock - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (2):299-323.
Understanding climate phenomena with data-driven models.Benedikt Knüsel & Christoph Baumberger - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84 (C):46-56.
Model Explanation Versus Model-Induced Explanation.Insa Lawler & Emily Sullivan - 2021 - Foundations of Science 26 (4):1049-1074.
Do fictions explain?James Nguyen - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):3219-3244.

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References found in this work

Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation.Michael Strevens - 2008 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2008 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Science in the age of computer simulation.Eric Winsberg - 2010 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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