Modelling Nature: Representation in Philosophy and Sociology of Science

Questions about representation and scientific models have increasingly taken centre-stage in recent philosophy of science. In this session, Roman Frigg will outline his account of scientific models as fictional entities. While this account recognises that the construction of scientific models can be worthwhile in its own right, it also provides an analysis of how models represent their target system, explains why this is important, and makes some suggestions for how this might be taken up in empirical studies. In the second part, Adam Bostanci will discuss this account of models with a view to recent work in the social studies of science, drawing in particular on literature that has discussed modelling and representation. Overall, the aim of the session is recognise the central role of model-building in scientific research, and to begin a discussion of how this should be reflected in  social studies of science.