FROM MODELS-AS-FICTIONS TO MODELS-AS-TOOLS
FROM MODELS-AS-FICTIONS TO MODELS-AS-TOOLS
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DOI：
10.3998/ergo.12405314.0004.027
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发表时间：
2017-01-01
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
Currie, Adrian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Currie, Adrian
许多关于科学建模的描述都将模型视为虚构：模型与各种美学对象之间存在类比，科学家如何与模型互动以及作者如何与虚构互动之间也存在类比。像大多数关于模型的叙述一样，虚构主义者认为模型是现实世界的启示，因为模型与目标系统具有某种相似关系。虽然这种虚构的描述捕捉到了建模实践的关键方面，但它们不适合某些设计和工程背景。在这里，模型有时用于承保设计项目，从而构建现实世界的目标。在这种情况下，尚不清楚该模型应该是什么样的。此外，虽然虚构主义者经常要求作为模型的模型具有其内容，但在某些工程和设计背景下，成功条件并不需要这样的内容，所需要的只是模型生成所需的输出。我把这些观点作为动机，提出一个容纳虚构主义但更广泛的观点。我阐明并捍卫了模型作为工具的一种解释：具体地说，是在特定背景下投入特定用途的物质对象。
Many accounts of scientific modeling conceive of models as fictions: there are analogies between models and various aesthetic objects, as well as between how scientists interact with models and how authors interact with fictions. Fictionalists, like most accounts of models, take models to be revelatory of the actual world in virtue of bearing some resemblance relation to a target system. While such fictionalist accounts capture crucial aspects of modelling practice, they are ill-suited to some design and engineering contexts. Here, models sometimes serve to underwrite design projects whereby real-world targets are constructed. In such circumstances, it is unclear what the model is supposed to resemble. Further, while fictionalists often require that models qua models have their content in virtue of construal or interpretation, in some engineering and design contexts success-conditions do not require such content-all that is required is that the model generates the required outputs. I take these points to motivate a view which accommodates fictionalism, but is broader. I articulate and defend an account of models as tools: specifically, material objects which are put to particular uses in particular contexts.