Scientific Discovery Through Fictionally Modelling Reality

Topoi 39 (4):927-937 (2018)
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Abstract

How do scientific models represent in a way that enables us to discover new truths about reality and draw inferences about it? Contemporary accounts of scientific discovery answer this question by focusing on the cognitive mechanisms involved in the generation of new ideas and concepts in terms of a special sort of reasoning—or model-based reasoning—involving imagery. Alternatively, I argue that answering this question requires that we recognise the crucial role of the propositional imagination in the construction and development of models for the purpose of generating hypotheses that are plausible candidates for truth. I propose simple fictionalism as a new account of models as Waltonian games of make-believe and suggest that models can lead to genuine scientific discovery when they are used as representations that denote real world phenomena and generate two main kinds of theoretical hypotheses, model-world comparisons and direct attributions.

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Fiora Salis
University of York

Citations of this work

Response to Akagi, Hughes, and Springle. [REVIEW]Edouard Machery - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (4):608-623.
The Method of Cases in Context. [REVIEW]Alison Springle - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (4):597-608.

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References found in this work

The Logic of Scientific Discovery.Karl Popper - 1959 - Studia Logica 9:262-265.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.K. Popper - 1959 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 10 (37):55-57.
Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology.Gregory Currie & Ian Ravenscroft - 2002 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. Edited by Christoph Hoerl.

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