Recent Semantic Developments on Models (original) (raw)

2015, Science & Education

The importance of models and modelling in the contexts of science and science education can hardly be overrated: Scientists spend a great deal of time building, testing, comparing and revising models, and much journal space is dedicated to introducing, applying and interpreting these valuable tools. In short, models are one of the principal instruments of modern science. (Frigg and Hartmann 2012, n/p.) Hence the philosophy of science, for at least six decades now, has devoted careful attention to the nature and role of models in the scientific enterprise. Accordingly, it is against the backdrop of the existing plethora of philosophical attempts at elucidating what models are that any new academic contributions seeking to study this construct are heartily welcome and should be critically analysed and assessed. In my opinion, this is especially the case when such contributions can be located within the socalled semanticist perspective on models, which (arguably) is the most developed, well established, and widely accepted in current philosophy of science (cf. Thomson-Jones 2006). Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World by Michael Weisberg deals with physical, mathematical and computational models, revisiting a classical, analytic distinction, and amplifying and refining it with the aid of semantic constructs and tools. The book elaborately develops a well-founded account on the nature of scientific models and on the practice of scientific modelling, in which much attention is paid-as the title wants to indicate-to the semantic relation of ''similarity'' that holds between a model and its intended target(s).