There is no special problem about scientific representation

2014

within the philosophy of science, with many papers published regularly on the topic every year, and several yearly conferences and workshops on related topics. Historically the topic originates in two different strands in 20 th century philosophy of science. One strand begins in the 1950s with philosophical interest upon the nature of scientific theories. As the received or 'syntactic' view gave way to a "semantic" or "structural" conception, representation progressively gained the centre stage. Yet, there is another, older, strand that links representation to fin de siècle modelling debates, particularly in the emerging 'bildtheorie' of Boltzmann and Hertz, and to the ensuing discussion amongst philosophers

Philosophy of Science, 2017

Callender and Cohen (2006) argue that there is no need for a special account of the constitution of scientific representation. I argue that scientific representation is communal and therefore deeply tied to the practice in which it is embedded. The communal nature is accounted for by licensing, the activities of scientific practice by which scientists establish a representation. A case study of the Lotka-Volterra model reveals how the licensure is a constitutive element of the representational relationship. Thus, any account of the constitution of scientific representation must account for licensing, meaning that there is a special problem of scientific representation.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015

The article constitutes a detailed overview of the most important background literature on the topic of scientific representation. It gives a detailed outline of many of the important philosophical accounts of scientific representation. The primary division is between substantive accounts (structuralist and similarity) and deflationary/pragmatic accounts. Objections to each type of account are considered. Insights from the literature on modelling are discussed along with an overview of some of the insights from the sociology of science.

Philosophy of Science in Practice, 2016

The final version is available from www.romanfrigg.org 3 An implicit assumption of the current project is that no satisfactory account of representation is currently available, and that therefore an effort to formulate one is not just an idle pastime. For want of space we cannot argue for this premise here and refer the reader to (Frigg and Nguyen forthcoming). 4 Throughout the paper we use the following abbreviations: LA for Goodman (1976), MM for Goodman (1984), WRR for Elgin (1983), CJ for Elgin (1996), TI for Elgin (2010), TE for Elgin (2004) and EIS for Elgin (2009). 5 Notice that GE do not use 'reference' as a synonym for 'denotation'. 'Pictures, equations, graphs, charts, and maps represent their subjects by denoting them. They are representations of the things that they denote. […] It is in this sense that scientific models represent their target systems: they denote them.' (TI, 2) So for X to be a representation of Y it is necessary that X denotes Y because 'denotation is the core of representation' (LA, 5). For this reason denotation is 'representation-of' (TI, 4). 6 'A predicate denotes severally the objects in its extension. It does not denote the class that is its extension, but rather each of the members of that class.' (WRR, 19; cf. LA, 19

International Studies in The Philosophy of Science, 2003

I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that similarity and isomorphism are not the constituents of scientific representation. I finish by looking at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those that abandon the aim to radically naturalize scientific representation are likely to be successful.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015

This article provides a state-of-the-art review of the philosophical literature on scientific representation. It first argues that the topic emerges historically mainly out of what may be called the modelling tradition. It then introduces a number of helpful analytical distinctions and goes on to divide contemporary approaches to scientific representation into two distinct kinds, substantive and deflationary. Analogies with related discussions of artistic representation in aesthetics and the nature of truth in metaphysics are pursued. It is finally urged that the most promising approaches—and the ones most likely to feature prominently in future developments—are deflationary. In particular, a defense is provided of a genuinely inferential conception of representation.

In this essay, I shall show that the so-called inferential and interpretational (Contessa 2007) accounts of scientific representation are respectively unsatisfactory and too weak to account for scientific representation (pars destruens). Along the way, I shall also argue that the pragmatic similarity (Giere 2004 and Giere 2010) and the partial isomorphism (da accounts are unable to single out scientific representation. In the pars construens I spell out a limiting case account which has explanatory surplus vis a`vis the approaches which I have previously reviewed. My account offers an adequate treatment of scientific representation, or so I shall try to argue. Central to my account is the notion of a pragmatic limiting case, which will be characterized in due course.

This article provides a state of the art review of the philosophical literature on scientific representation. It first argues that the topic emerges historically mainly out of what may be called the modelling tradition. It then introduces a number of helpful analytical distinctions, and goes on to divide contemporary approaches to scientific representation into two distinct kinds, substantive and deflationary. Analogies with related discussions of artistic representation in aesthetics, and of the nature of truth in metaphysics are pursued. It is finally urged that the most promising approaches - and the ones most likely to feature prominently in future developments - are deflationary. In particular, a defence is provided of a genuinely inferential conception of representation.

Oxford Bibliography Online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0219.xml, 2014

within the philosophy of science, with many papers published regularly on the topic every year, and several yearly conferences and workshops on related topics. Historically the topic originates in two different strands in 20 th century philosophy of science. One strand begins in the 1950s with philosophical interest upon the nature of scientific theories. As the received or 'syntactic' view gave way to a "semantic" or "structural" conception, representation progressively gained the centre stage. Yet, there is another, older, strand that links representation to fin de siècle modelling debates, particularly in the emerging 'bildtheorie' of Boltzmann and Hertz, and to the ensuing discussion amongst philosophers