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Models: Measuring or Cognitive Instruments?

Boge, Florian J. (2025) Models: Measuring or Cognitive Instruments? [Preprint]

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Abstract

A number of authors (Morgan, 1999; Boumans, 2005; Morrison, 2009; Massimi and Bhimji, 2015; Parker, 2017) have argued that models can be quite literally thought of as measuring instruments. I here challenge this view by reconstructing three arguments from the literature and rebutting them. Further, I argue that models should be seen as cognitive rather than measuring instruments, and that the distinction is important for understanding scientific change: Both yield two distinct sources of insight that mutually depend on each other, and should not be equated. In particular, we may perform the exact same actions in the laboratory but
conceive of them entirely differently by virtue of the models we endorse at different points in time.

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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Boge, Florian J.florian-johannes.boge@tu-dortmund.de0000-0002-1030-3393
Keywords: models; simulation; measurement; experiment; instrumentalism
Subjects: General Issues > Computer Simulation
General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User: Prof. Dr. Florian Boge
Date Deposited: 29 Apr 2025 12:02
Last Modified: 29 Apr 2025 12:02
Item ID: 25199
Subjects: General Issues > Computer Simulation
General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date: 2025
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25199

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