Models Don’t Decompose That Way
A Holistic View of Idealized Models
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8399187 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Collin Rice (0000-0002-4632-345X, Bryn Mawr College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 179-208 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjps/axx045 |
| OpenAlex | W2752066619 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 33 |
| References cited | 42 |
Many (if not most) accounts of scientific modelling assume that models can be decomposed into the contributions made by their accurate and inaccurate parts. These accounts then argue that the inaccurate parts of the model can be justified by distorting only what is irrelevant. In this article, I argue that this decompositional strategy requires three assumptions that are not typically met by our best scientific models. In response, I propose an alternative view in which idealized models are characterized as holistically distorted representations that are justified by allowing for the application of various (mathematical) modelling techniques. 1 Introduction2 The Decompositional Strategy 2.1 Mechanistic modelling and decomposition 2.2 Accounts of explanation that require decomposition 2.3 Accounts of idealization that require decomposition 2.4 Robustness analysis and decomposition 2.5 Scientific realism and decomposition 2.6 Three assumptions of the decompositional strategy3 Against the Decompositional Strategy 3.1 Many scientific models don’t decompose that way 3.2 Many idealizations distort difference-making features4 An Alternative Approach: The Holistic Distortion View of Idealized Models5 Conclusion
Decomposition · Epistemology · Flexibility (engineering) · Idealization · Mathematical economics · Philosophy of science · Robustness (evolution) · Scientific modelling · Statistics · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Computer Science · Gene Regulatory Network Analysis · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science
Extending Similarity-Based Epistemology of Modality with Models
Bilimsel İdealizasyonlar
The unfeasibility of onto-representationalism
Rules to Infinity
On Leszek Nowak’s Conception of the Unity of Science
Generative Models
The Truth About Better Understanding
A Defense of Truth as a Necessary Condition on Scientific Explanation
Łukasz Hardt, Economics Without Laws
Economic Methodology in the Twenty-First Century (So Far)
Eliminating Idealizations with Soundness Analysis
Defending De-idealization in Economic Modeling
Understanding realism
Scientific understanding and felicitous legitimate falsehoods
Factive inferentialism and the puzzle of model-based explanation
Truth, understanding, and normativity in scientific models
Cognitive dynamical models as minimal models
Modeling multiscale patterns
Gradual de-idealisation and progress in political science
Design principles as minimal models
Idealisation, genetic explanations and political behaviours
Scaling procedures in climate science
Describing model relations
Empirical techniques and the accuracy of scientific representations
Holistic idealization
Reckoning with Continuum Idealizations
Model Evaluation
Deidealization
Do Machine Learning Models Represent Their Targets
On the Role of Erotetic Constraints in Noncausal Explanations
Multi-Model Reasoning in Economics
Understanding Particle Interactions
Concrete Scale Models, Essential Idealization, and Causal Explanation
Simulation and Similarity
How the Laws of Physics Lie
Making Things Happen
The Devil in the Details
Depth
Explaining the Brain
A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism
Idealization and the Aims of Science
Causation in biology
Three Kinds of Idealization
Modeling mechanisms
When mechanistic models explain
Idealized models, holistic distortions, and universality
How dimensional analysis can explain
Models and fiction
How scientific models can explain
Modeling reality
The Trials of Life
What Elements of Successful Scientific Theories Are the Correct Targets for “Selective” Scientific Realism
No Refuge for Realism
The Explanatory Force of Dynamical and Mathematical Models in Neuroscience
Reassessing Woodward’s Account of Explanation
The Idealization of Causation in Mechanistic Explanation
Distinguishing Explanatory from Nonexplanatory Fictions
Robustness Analysis
Population Genetics and Population Thinking
Thinking about Mechanisms
Physical Models and Biological Contexts
Minimal Model Explanations
Economic Modelling as Robustness Analysis
Autonomous-Statistical Explanations and Natural Selection
On the Explanatory Role of Mathematics in Empirical Science
| Unique citing works | 33 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,71 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 30 |