Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

DeepDyve requires Javascript to function. Please enable Javascript on your browser to continue.

How to Do Science with Models

Part of the SpringerBriefs in Philosophy Book Series

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-27954-1

ISBN: 978-3-319-27952-7

Publisher: Springer International Publishing - Springer Journals

Dec 20, 2015

Available

Between Theory and Phenomena: What are Scientific Models?

Gelfert, Axel

Pages: 1 –24

[Models are used across all scientific disciplines and come in a variety of different forms and shapes: as phenomenological models, theoretical models, mathematical models, toy models, scale models, etc. This bewildering array of different types of models naturally gives rise to the ontological...
Available

Scientific Representation and the Uses of Scientific Models

Gelfert, Axel

Pages: 25 –42

[Much of the philosophical debate about scientific models has focused on their representational function. Beginning with a discussion of the problem of scientific representation in general (as explored by Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and others) this chapter discusses two specific proposals...
Available

Strategies and Trade-Offs in Model-Building

Gelfert, Axel

Pages: 43 –70

[This chapter looks in detail at a number of case studies from across the natural sciences, with the goal of identifying recurring strategies of model-building. Examples discussed range from target-oriented modeling in population biology (Lotka-Volterra model of predator–prey systems) to...
Available

Exploratory Uses of Scientific Models

Gelfert, Axel

Pages: 71 –99

[This chapter discusses a variety of closely related uses of models which are best described collectively as ‘exploratory modeling’. The importance of exploration to science has recently been emphasized by a number of historians and philosophers of science writing on scientific experimentation,...
Available

Models as Mediators, Contributors, and Enablers of Scientific Knowledge

Gelfert, Axel

Pages: 101 –129

[This chapter argues that scientific models function as mediators, contributors, and enablers of scientific knowledge. It begins with a discussion of the ‘models-as-mediators’ view, according to which models are partly autonomous mediators between theory and data. However, close attention to the...

results per page

Prev
1
Next

Browse All eBooks