The Importance of Models in Theorizing: A Deflationary Semantic View

Abstract

It is commonly acknowledged in science that model construction is one of the most important components of theorizing. Philosophers of science are gradually coming to acknowledge this situation, spurred on by holders of the semantic view of theories. In this paper I wish to defend a very deflationary version of the semantic view of theories, which is more or less a re-statement of the above commonplace. I reject the view encapsulated in the identity statement “scientific theories are families of models,” although acknowledging the useful insights into science that holders of this strong position have given us. My position derives from a critique of various of the semantic views of theories, and further from a guiding presupposition that rather than providing necessary and sufficient conditions for what a theory is, philosophers should focus on the nature of scientific theorizing. Theorizing is carried out by practicing scientists, and we cannot say what scientific theories are unless we appreciate the myriad ways they are used and developed in all of the sciences.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 140 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.