Models and Theories: A Philosophical Inquiry

ISBN-13: 9781844654901 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014

Roman Frigg

Opis

As scientists spend a substantial part of their time building, testing, comparing and revising theories or models, it is no surprise that the nature of theories and models is a subject of central importance within the philosophy of science. This book provides a critical survey of, and introduction to, the debates surrounding theories and models within analytical philosophy of science. It combines coverage of standard topics such as the syntactic and semantic views of theories as well as ones less often discussed in connection with models and theories but which nevertheless are shown to have a clear bearing on the topic, such as Munich structuralism, thought experiments, the applicability of mathematics in the empirical sciences and measurement theory. The book begins with an exposition of the problems that any tenable account of theories and models has to come to terms with and this serves as the background against which the positions discussed in the book are assessed and evaluated. This book provides a clearly structured and systematic introduction to a field, which, due to its richness and complexity, is difficult to master, and by focusing our attention oncentral issues and by examining where we stand on these, it also lays bare lacunas in the literature and points to future directions of research.

Spis treści

Preface, Introduction, Part 1, 1. Theory and Language, 2. Models in the Received View, 3. Delineating the Observable, 4. Framing the Theoretical, Part 2, 5. Thinking Through Structures, 6. Representing with Structures, 7. Family Ties, 8. Beyond Structures, Part 3, 9. Reconsidering Representation, 10. Analogy, 11. Abstraction, Approximation, Idealisation, 12. Limit Idealisations and Factor Exclusions, Part 4, 13. Challenging Subordination, 14. What Are Models?, 15. Taming Abundance, 16. The Model Muddle Envoi, Index

O autorze

Roman Frigg is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He is the winner of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and a permanent visiting professor in the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. His current work focuses on the nature of scientific models and theories, the foundations of statistical mechanics, and decision making under uncertainty.