Scientific Models, Fiction and Imagination

ended

The project aims to systematically explore a novel approach to model-based reasoning drawing on the relationship between the debate on the nature of scientific models from philosophy of science and the debate on the nature of fiction from aesthetics. Many contemporary philosophers of science argue that learning with models involves a special cognitive function that they call “surrogative reasoning” or “model-based reasoning”. Understanding model-based reasoning can be divided into two subprojects: what model-systems are (SP1) and how knowledge about the model is converted/interpreted into knowledge about the target (SP2). Work within (SP1) will be driven by the hypothesis that scientific models are akin to the fictions of literature and the arts. Work within (SP2) will be driven by the hypothesis that interpretation is mediated by a representational relation converting a fact about the model system into a claim about the target system. The project relies on the normative and descriptive methodology of analytical naturalised philosophy of science, which focuses on examples and case studies. The project will benefit from the combination of Frigg’s expertise in philosophy of science and modelling and of Salis’ original specialization in the areas of aesthetics and the philosophy of fiction. Furthermore, we will collaborate with the experts from the CPNSS Philosophy of Physics project at LSE, with the decision theorists and social choice experts in the LSE’s Choice Group and with the CATS (Centre for the Analysis of Time Series) group on climate models based at LSE. This study will lead to new insights into the nature of scientific modelling and model-based reasoning and it will open new lines of research by injecting a new and fresh perspective from aesthetics into philosophy of science.