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The modal basis of scientific modelling

The practice of scientific modelling often resorts to hypothetical, false, idealised, targetless, partial, generalised, and other types of modelling that appear to have at least partially non-actual targets. In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid a commitment to non-actual targets by sketchin...

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Autor principal: Tahko, Tuomas E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935741/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36820131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04063-z
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author Tahko, Tuomas E.
author_facet Tahko, Tuomas E.
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description The practice of scientific modelling often resorts to hypothetical, false, idealised, targetless, partial, generalised, and other types of modelling that appear to have at least partially non-actual targets. In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid a commitment to non-actual targets by sketching a framework where models are understood as having networks of possibilities as their targets. This raises a further question: what are the truthmakers for the modal claims that we can derive from models? I propose that we can find truthmakers for the modal claims derived from models in actuality, even in the case of supposedly non-actual targets. I then put this framework to use by examining a case study concerning the modelling of superheavy elements.
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spelling pubmed-99357412023-02-18 The modal basis of scientific modelling Tahko, Tuomas E. Synthese Original Research The practice of scientific modelling often resorts to hypothetical, false, idealised, targetless, partial, generalised, and other types of modelling that appear to have at least partially non-actual targets. In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid a commitment to non-actual targets by sketching a framework where models are understood as having networks of possibilities as their targets. This raises a further question: what are the truthmakers for the modal claims that we can derive from models? I propose that we can find truthmakers for the modal claims derived from models in actuality, even in the case of supposedly non-actual targets. I then put this framework to use by examining a case study concerning the modelling of superheavy elements. Springer Netherlands 2023-02-16 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9935741/ /pubmed/36820131 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04063-z Text en © The Author(s) 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Tahko, Tuomas E.
The modal basis of scientific modelling
title The modal basis of scientific modelling
title_full The modal basis of scientific modelling
title_fullStr The modal basis of scientific modelling
title_full_unstemmed The modal basis of scientific modelling
title_short The modal basis of scientific modelling
title_sort modal basis of scientific modelling
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935741/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36820131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04063-z
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