Science as a Model Building Enterprise

许多人认为科学提供了精确的定律，并努力完成一个客观给定世界的统一和精确的画面。在过去的十年里，一种相互竞争的观点将科学描述为提供世界上有限部分的模型，这些模型只在有限的方面和有限的准确度上进行描述。许多研究者先前的工作表明，这种“模型观点”比传统的方法更准确地描述了科学的智力产品，因为它实际上是实践的。然而，许多人认为，模型观点仍然面临着严重的困难。这个项目将表明，当一个人把模型的观点作为一个帐户的智力产品的科学，因为它是实际实践中，反对意见可以满足或显示是错位。我们可以得出结论，作为对实践中的科学的一种解释，模型观点比传统的方法更好地解释了科学，传统的方法将科学描述为向我们提供由精确定律组成的理论。模型观点也为我们提供了对科学（智力）目标的最佳可用解释的主张更具争议性。传统的方法支持“收敛现实主义”，认为科学试图填补一个越来越准确，全面和统一的描述客观给定的世界。该项目将研究对这种传统观点的某些反对意见，并表明当它们被满足时，模型观点也提供了科学的智力目标的最合理的图景。所主张的观点认为，有限的模型使我们对世界的有限部分有真实的和客观的理解，尽管总是有限的，我们有理由对这样一种观念保持不可知论，即客观存在的东西也可以被给予一种完全统一的和人类可以理解的描述。

Many take science to provide exact laws and as striving to complete a unified and exact picture of an objectively given world. In the last decade a competing view describes science as providing models of limited parts of the world, where the models describe only in limited respects and with limited degrees of accuracy. Prior work by a number of investigators suggest that this "model view" gives a much more accurate account than do traditional approaches of the intellectual product of science as it is actually practiced. However, many believe that the model view nonetheless faces crippling difficulties. This project will show that when one takes the model view as an account of the intellectual product of science as it is actually practiced, the objections can each be met or shown to be misplaced. It will be concluded that as an account of science as practiced the model view gives a better account than traditional approaches which describe science as providing us with theories composed of exact laws. The claim that the model view also provides us with the best available account of the (intellectual) aims of science is more contentious. Traditional approaches endorse "convergent realism", the view that science seeks to fill in an increasingly accurate, comprehensive and unified description of the objectively given world. The project will examine certain objections to this traditional view and show that when they are met the model view also provides the most plausible picture of the intellectual aims of science. The view to be advocated maintains that limited models give us real and objective, though always limited, understanding of restricted parts of the world and that we reasonably remain agnostic about the idea that what objectively exists is something which also could be given a completely unified and humanly accessible description.