Idealized models, holistic distortions, and universality

Collin RICE

pp. 2795-2819

in: Michael Kirchhoff (ed), Predictive brains and embodied, enactive cognition, Synthese 195 (6), 2018.

Abstract

In this paper, I first argue against various attempts to justify idealizations in scientific models that explain by showing that they are harmless and isolable distortions of irrelevant features. In response, I propose a view in which idealized models are characterized as providing holistically distorted representations of their target system(s). I then suggest an alternative way that idealized modeling can be justified by appealing to universality.