Abstract

This book investigates the main 20th and 21st-century philosophical conceptions of science, in which models are a founding category. The category of model is more and more often alleged in philosophy as – it is claimed – models are significant and effective tools of science, or because by applying the category of semantic models science can be explained on a non-reconstructive basis. The category of model is considered the very basis or, at least, a main tool of substituting neopositivistic and even some post-neopositivistic views on science. In the philosophical studies on models three stages can be discerned: (1) since the 1960s, the notions of models were being constructed by reference to the concepts of metaphor (Max Black), analogy (Mary Hesse) or system of mathematical equations (Peter Achinstein, Rom Harré). (2) Since the 1960s, the semantic conceptions of empirical sciences have been developed. (3) Since mid-1980s, the main approach to models has been changed. Firstly, much more attention has been paid to the reconstruction of the practice of science and actual ways of applying models within it. Formal semantic constructions, partially normatively introduced to the philosophy of natural sciences, have lost their prominence. It is mostly due to the naturalizing of the philosophy of science. The descriptive approach follows the tradition initiated by Duhem, Black, Hesse, Achinstein, and others. The other reason is the rejection of the neopositivistic belief that logic is an appropriate research tool for the phenomenon of science. Moreover, in the third stage of the investigations problematics of models it is the issue of representation which has become the centre of attention. The fundamental question of this stage is: “how do models represent reality?”. Apart from representation, other functions are assigned to models such as reasoning, explaining, knowledge organizing, clarifying, etc. Numerous philosophers investigate the problem of models in this third mentioned way, among others Ronald Giere, Rom Harré, Bas van Fraassen, Nancy Cartwright and a group of philosophers centred around her – Daniela Bailer-Jones, Margaret Morrison, Mary S. Morgan, Mauricio Suárez, Newton da Costa, Steven French, Roman Frigg. The aim of this book is to consider the roles of models in contemporary scientific practice. To realize this aim I analyse and reconstruct selected, most representative conceptions of science which regard the roles of models as fundamental and non-eliminable. On this basis, I propose a typology of models and indicate the relations of models to some basic issues in the philosophy of science since the 1960s till today. I demonstrate that the explications of models have altered following the change of issues considered central in the philosophy of science – from issues concerning the development of science, especially scientific knowledge, to the issues of the cognitive representation of reality. I show and justify how models – as grasped in the here analysed conceptions – are effective and meaningful, and how these conceptions give better ways of viewing science than those based on the linguistic approach to it, i.e. the conceptions subordinated to the linguistic paradigm. Especially important and of a great potential are those conceptions of science which treat models as non-linguistic objects, although their nature is frequently not explicated in a satisfactory precise way. I distinguish two main types of models; the criterion of distinguishing is their functions in science: (1) in an earlier philosophy of science (Duhem, Hesse, Black, Achinstein, among others) it has been claimed – frequently implicitly – that models play the function of creating knowledge (so they function in the so called context of discovery); (2) since the 1980s it is believed that the main function of models is the representing of reality. The diversity of the views on models (together with their classifications, definitions of models and concepts of science based on various notions of models) causes a conceptual chaos. So, in order to achieve the set goal, I have ordered the concepts of models, and revealed similarities and differences between models of particular types. I have also reduced the types of models and functions of models proposed in the literature of the subject to the basic, most significant types. I demonstrate that models are applied to cope with two main problems and tasks of science: the forming of a new knowledge and forming of the cognitive representations of reality. To realize the first task analogue-models and models based on analogies are used, whereas to realize the second task representationistic models are constructed. The first chapter investigates analogue and metaphor-based models. The connection between analogue models and the creating of a new knowledge is also revealed: b ased on anticipated analogies between models, new models are constructed and thus a new knowledge is created. Therefore the introduction of the category of analogue models allows to solve, in a new and non-traditional way, the problem of scientific discovery. Some basic issues considered in this chapter have never been discussed before. Among them is the following problem: “why do analogue models effectively play the role of creating A new knowledge and what legitimates their introduction to science?”. In the second chapter, the conceptions of science including representing models are examined. In chapter 3 I comparatively analyse and systematize various functions of models. First of all I investigate the following problem: are two main types of models indicated in two first chapters and their functions present in philosophical investigations exclude or rather complement each other. If they are complementary – what I attempt to prove – then a fundamental need arises to unify these two main types of models, treated till now as separated, in one all-embarrassing kind of model. This task is important since in the contemporary philosophy of science two main problems, i.e. of acquiring new knowledge (also called the issue of scientific change or of science development) and the problem of representation of reality are regarded as separate and considered in mutual isolation. However, it seems that in order to explain the core of science, both of these issues should be merged – in the terms of the unification of analogue and metaphoric models with the representing ones). Only their connection can explain, or at least contribute to explain how the science is functioning.