Rice, Collin (2019) Models Don’t Decompose That Way: A Holistic View of Idealized Models. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 70 (1). ISSN 1464-3537

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Abstract

Many (if not most) accounts of scientific modeling assume that models can be decomposed into the contributions made by their accurate and inaccurate parts. These accounts then argue that the inaccurate parts of the model can be justified by distorting only what is irrelevant. In this paper, I argue that this decompositional strategy requires three assumptions that are not typically met by our best scientific models. In response, I propose an alternative view in which idealized models are characterized as holistically distorted representations that are justified by allowing for the application of various (mathematical) modeling techniques.

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Item Type:	Published Article or Volume
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Rice, Collin collin.rice@colostate.edu
Keywords:	Modeling; Idealization; Explanation
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization
Depositing User:	Collin Rice
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2025 14:43
Last Modified:	22 Aug 2025 14:43
Item ID:	26321
Journal or Publication Title:	The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Publisher:	Chicago
Official URL:	https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1093/bjps...
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1093/bjps/axx045
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization
Date:	2019
Volume:	70
Number:	1
ISSN:	1464-3537
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26321

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