Models and the Semantic View

Abstract

I begin by distinguishing two notions of model, the notion of a truth-making structure and the notion of a mathematical model (in one specific sense). I then argue that although the models of the semantic view have often been taken to be both truth-making structures and mathematical models, this is in part due to a failure to distinguish between two ways of truth-making; in fact, the talk of truth-making is best excised from the view altogether. The result is a version of the semantic view which is better supported by the direct evidence offered for it, better equipped to achieve its avowed aims, and, I think, closer to the intentions of the original proponents of the view in many ways, despite some of their own declarations to the contrary.

The strategy of model-based science

“…See alsoThompson-Jones (2006) for a careful and useful discussion of these aims; he makes a further distinction within this general project, between richer and more trivial senses in which something can function as a truth-making structure.3 French and Ladyman (1999) is a more recent defence of the semantic view that emphasizes, again, the importance of language-independence.Biol Philos (2006) 21:725-740 727…”

Defending the Semantic View: what it takes

“…One important recent work in which the Semantic View is used is da Costa and French (2003). 2 See Redhead (1980), Cartwright (1983Cartwright ( , 1989Cartwright ( , 1999, Ereshefsky (1991), Morrison (1999), Suarez (2003), Thomson-Jones (2006), Frigg (2006), Morrison (2007), and Bueno and Krause (2008). 3 What follows is a conceptual reconstruction of the Semantic View.…”

“…21 Even if Cartwright (1983Cartwright ( , 1989) has been developing similar views over the past twenty years, Morrisson (1999) is often cited for posing the criticism of the Semantic View along these lines. Thomson-Jones (2006) gives an analysis of the relation between logical models and scientific models, the former being characterized by their truth making function, and the latter by their representational function. Brading and Landry (2006) and Frigg (2006) gives also a systematic analysis of the problem.…”

Modeling and Inferring in Science

“…Many authors have criticized this conflation of different senses attached to the term 'model' (Thomson-Jones 2006). But the problem is that if we decouple the concept of model used in model theory from that used for heuristic purposes in scientific practice, then it is difficult to maintain some of the traditional realist claims about the truth of our best scientific theories that many philosophers of science subscribe to.…”