Models As Fictions, Fictions As Models.

SCIENTIFIC models; FICTION & psychology; FICTION & society; FICTION; MODELS & modelmaking; ETHICS

Thinking of models in science as fictions is said to be helpful, not merely because models are known or assumed to be false, but because work on the nature of fiction helps us understand what models are and how they work. I am unpersuaded. For example, instead of trying to assimilate truth-in-a model to truth-in-fiction we do better to see both as special and separate cases of the more general notion truth-according-to-a-corpus. Does enlightenment go the other way? Do we better understand fiction’s capacity to generate knowledge by thinking of it as a kind of modelling? If we see, as we should, fictions and models are parts of larger patterns of cognitive activity that include institutional frameworks, the best answer is no. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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