
Publication details
Year: 2015
Pages: 3817-3837
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "External representations and scientific understanding", Synthese 192 (12), 2015, pp. 3817-3837.


External representations and scientific understanding
pp. 3817-3837
in: Markus Eronen, Raphael van Riel (eds), Understand though modeling, Synthese 192 (12), 2015.Abstract
This paper provides an inferentialist account of model-based understanding by combining a counterfactual account of explanation and an inferentialist account of representation with a view of modeling as extended cognition. This account makes it understandable how the manipulation of surrogate systems like models can provide genuinely new empirical understanding about the world. Similarly, the account provides an answer to the question how models, that always incorporate assumptions that are literally untrue of the model target, can still provide factive explanations. Finally, the paper shows how the contrastive counterfactual theory of explanation can provide tools for assessing the explanatory power of models.
Publication details
Year: 2015
Pages: 3817-3837
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "External representations and scientific understanding", Synthese 192 (12), 2015, pp. 3817-3837.