Fictional models and metaphorical models: a critical view on fictionalism about scientific models

Document Type : Research/Original/Reqular Article

Author

Assisstant Professor, Iranian Institute of Philosophy

Abstract

Fictionalism about scientific models is a philosophical approach according to which many important questions about the nature and function of models can be answered by taking models as fiction, without any ontological commitments to models. In this approach, fiction is a technical term denotes on a particular kind of imagination in which the participant due to the presence of prop is engaged in the pretence action: she takes some false statements as true and participates in the constructed fictional world. In this paper, after elaborating Walton's account of fiction and make-believe games and his aim to cover metaphors by the same mechanism of pretence, and by focusing on Camp's criticisms and her point to distinguish metaphorical imaginations from fictional ones, we will reach the conclusion that Walton's account is not appropriate to cover metaphors. Next, we will consider Frigg's use of Walton's account to analyse scientific models. It will argued that Frigg's framework is inadequate to cover metaphorical models, which in parallel with fictional ones play a crucial role in science.

Keywords

References

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Journal for the History of Science
Volume 18, Issue 1 - Serial Number 28
September 2020
Pages 131-152

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