Modelling and representing: An artefactual approach to model-based representation Tarja Knuuttila University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland article info Article history: Available online 21 February 2011 Keywords: Scientific models Epistemic tools Representation Modelling abstract The recent discussion on scientific representation has focused on models and their relationship to the real world. It has been assumed that models give us knowledge because they represent their supposed real target systems. However, here agreement among philosophers of science has tended to end as they have presented widely different views on how representation should be understood. I will argue that the tra- ditional representational approach is too limiting as regards the epistemic value of modelling given the focus on the relationship between a single model and its supposed target system, and the neglect of the actual representational means with which scientists construct models. I therefore suggest an alternative account of models as epistemic tools. This amounts to regarding them as concrete artefacts that are built by specific representational means and are constrained by their design in such a way that they facilitate the study of certain scientific questions, and learning from them by means of construction and manipulation. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 1. Introduction The question of representation arose in the philosophy of sci- ence only relatively recently although the idea of representing the world accurately has been central to our common conception of science and to the philosophical discussion on realism. Yet it was not until the beginning of the 2000s that representation as a specific topic began to interest philosophers of science more gener- ally. Once started, the philosophical discussion focused almost exclusively on modelling. This may seem odd given that scientific endeavour employs manifold representations that are not readily called models. Such representations include visual and graphic dis- plays on paper and on screen, such as pictures, photographs and audiographic and 3D images, as well as chart recordings, numerical representations, tables, textual accounts and symbolic renderings of diverse entities such as chemical formulas. Why, then, should the discussion on representation have arisen precisely in the con- text of modelling? Part of the answer lies in the history of the philosophy of sci- ence. Once the semantic approach had detached itself from the lin- guistic paradigm of the received view and began to conceive of theories as extra-linguistic entities, as families of (theoretical) models, the question turned to how these entities were linked to the world. Unlike propositions and sentences, terms such as ‘‘true’’ and ‘‘false’’ did not seem suited to dealing with the relationship be- tween models and their target systems. ‘‘Representation’’ seemed to be more appropriate—and flexible. As Woodward noted: ‘‘The notion of [adequate] representation is a more general idea than the notion of a statement’s being ‘true’, with representation having to do with a qualitative notion of ‘fit’ between a model and world— a notion that admits of degrees’’ (2002, p. 380). Of course, the con- viction that models are representations is of far more distant origin than the semantic approach to theories in its various guises. One of the criticisms levelled at the syntactic account was precisely that it neglected the representational role of models (see Portides, this issue). However, with regard to models, the notion of representation has also proved to be problematic because the notion of ‘‘degrees of fit’’ does not, after all, suit the representationalist paradigm, which makes more or less accurate correspondence between the model and its target object the criterion of fit. Models contain ide- alizations, simplifications, approximations, fictional entities and so 0039-3681/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.11.034 E-mail address: tarja.knuuttila@helsinki.fi Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011) 262–271 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa