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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Models as Mediators | 2/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_as_Mediators | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:11:45.867999+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Reception == One review notes that while the title appears to promise a unified theory of models the chapters point instead to a universe of possible ways to characterize the nature and use of models. Acting as mediators, models are partly independent from both theory and world, and this independence, that ensures the versatility of 'models as autonomous agents', is also the reason why they resist an attempt to a unified 'theory of models'.
But the individual chapters make clear why Models as Mediators cannot possibly offer such a theory: the models dealt with in the book are so diverse and disparate that they cannot really be covered by a general description.
The 'functionalist' — rather than philosophical approach of the work, i.e. more about what a model does than what a model is, leaves several questions unanswered (or answered in different ways in different chapters). Furthermore, the examples are quite technical and detailed, not easy to read for the non initiated. Important epistemological questions left open concerns for example why individual models are constructed with the particular degrees of independence from theory and experiment. Being focused on models in physics, chemistry and economics, the book leaves out biological models. The book lays the basis for a research programme for studying models from the point of view of scientific practice providing 'a potential bridge between philosophical theorising and the more practice-oriented approach of STS'.
== See also == Sociology of quantification Frigg, R. and Hartman, S., Models in Science, Stanford Encyclopedia, 2006.
== References ==