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Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization book cover

1st Edition

Fictions in Science Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization

Edited By Mauricio Suárez Copyright 2009
290 Pages
by Routledge

290 Pages
by Routledge

290 Pages
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its heart, taking as their starting point that science trades not only in truth, but in fiction, too.... Read more

Acknowledgments

Part I: INTRODUCTION

  1. Fictions in Scientific Practice (Mauricio Suárez)

Part II: THE NATURE OF FICTIONS IN SCIENCE

    2. Fictionalism (Arthur Fine)

    3. Laboratory Fictions (Joseph Rouse)

    4. Models as Fictions (Anouk Barberousse and Pascal Ludwig)

Part III: THE EXPLANATORY POWER OF FICTIONS

    5. Exemplification, Idealization, and Scientific Understanding (Catherine Elgin)

    6. Explanatory Fictions (Alisa Bokulich)

    7. Fictions, Representations and Reality (Margaret Morrison)

Part IV: FICTIONS IN THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES

    8. When Does a Scientific Theory Describe Reality? (Carsten Held)

    9. Scientific Fictions as Rules of Inference (Mauricio Suárez)

    10. A Function for Fictions: Expanding the Scope of Science (Eric Winsberg)

Part V: FICTIONS IN THE SPECIAL SCIENCES

    11. Model Organisms as Fictions (Rachel Ankeny)

    12. Representation, Idealization and Fiction in Economics: From the Assumptions Issue to the Epistemology of Modeling (Tarja Knuuttila)

Part VI: FICTIONS AND REALISM

    13. Fictions, Fictionalization and Truth in Science (Paul Teller)

    14. Why Scientific Models Should Not Be Regarded as Works of Fiction (Ronald N. Giere)

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Mauricio Suárez is Associate Professor in Logic and Philosophy of Science at Madrid’s Complutense University. His main research interests lie in the philosophy of physics and general epistemology of science, and he has published widely in both areas.

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