Studia Metodologiczne, 2019, nr 39

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Browsing Studia Metodologiczne, 2019, nr 39 by Author "Gelfert, Axel"

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    Cultures of Modelling: Rudolf Peierls on ‘Model-Making in Physics’
    (Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2019) Gelfert, Axel
    The philosophical debate about scientific models has, over the past thirty years or so, reached a high degree of sophistication. Yet, in spite of efforts to seek common ground with scientific practice, there remains the suspicion that philosophical accounts are sometimes too ‘free-floating’, in that they do not adequately reflect scientists’ views (and actual uses) of models. The present paper deals with one such scientific perspective, due to physicist Sir Rudolf Peierls (1907-1995). Writing thoroughly from the perspective of a theoretician with a deep appreciation for experimental physics, Peierls, in a series of papers, developed a taxonomy of scientific models, which – in spite of some inevitable arbitrariness – exhibits surprising points of convergence with contemporary philosophical accounts of how scientific models function. The present paper situates Peierls’s approach within the philosophical and scientific developments of his time, engages (in an immersive way) with his proposed taxonomy, and argues that Peierls’s views – and others like them – warrant the recent philosophical shift from a focus on model-based representation to non-representational (e.g., exploratory) uses and functions of models.
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    The Exploratory Role of Idealizations and Limiting Cases in Models
    (Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2019) Shech, Elay; Gelfert, Axel
    In this article we argue that idealizations and limiting cases in models play an exploratory role in science. Four senses of exploration are presented: exploration of the structure and representational capacities of theory; proof-of-principle demonstrations; potential explanations; and exploring the suitability of target systems. We illustrate our claims through three case studies, including the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the emergence of anyons and fractional quantum statistics, and the Hubbard model of the Mott phase transition. We end by reflecting on how our case studies and claims compare to accounts of idealization in the philosophy of science literature such as Michael Weisberg’s three-fold taxonomy.