[Sci-tech-public] Reading Group: Models and Metaphors in Scientific Practice

[Lukas Rieppel]

Hi Everyone,

Along with Arnon Levy (a philosophy grad student), I’m planning a 
reading group on the use of models and metaphors in scientific practice 
next year. We are hoping to have the Mind Brain Behavior Initiative 
sponsor this group. For our proposal, we are supposed to come up with a 
list of people who might be interested in attending some of our 
discussions. So, if you are at all interested / curious about the 
relationship between fictional models and the world, the role of 
metaphor in science, the representational capacity of pictures and 3-D 
objects, etc. then please look over the proposal draft below and let us 
know if you *might* be interested in attending a few of these 
discussions. The more, the merrier.

Cheers,
Lukas

--
Lukas Rieppel
PhD Student
Dpt. of the History of Science
Harvard University


*Models and Metaphors in Scientific Practice*

Philosophers and historians of science have been paying increased 
attention to models and metaphors over the past few decades. From their 
complimentary perspectives, these disciplines ask questions about the 
epistemic and cognitive role of models and metaphors in the process of 
generating, sharing, and modifying scientific knowledge. Our goal is to 
form a reading group that will bring these different perspectives into 
dialogue. Models and metaphors differ from theories by employing 
non-literal, indeed at times patently false, devices of representation 
in the search for knowledge. To understand how such devices work we 
must, on the one hand, have a better grasp of notions such as 
literality, figurative representation and truth. On the other hand, we 
need a better understanding of the character of reasoning with 
non-literal descriptions, and its relation to other forms of cognition. 
But this work cannot be done in the abstract. We ought to investigate 
models and metaphors as they are employed in concrete social and 
epistemic situations. Thus, we believe that interesting work on this 
cluster of topics should aim to clarify the role of model- and metaphor- 
based reasoning in context, by drawing on conceptual tools and results 
from philosophy and the history of science.

Topic I: Models as Cognitive Instruments.

Giere, Ronald N. 1999. “The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Theories,” 
in Science without Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

------. 1999. “Visual Models and Scientific Judgment,” in Science 
without Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Topic II: Model-Based Thinking in Natural Science.

Nersessian, N. 1999. “Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change,” in 
Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery by L. Magani, N. 
Nersessian, and P. Thagard (eds.). New York: Kluwer, pp. 5-22.

Morgan, Mary S. 1999. “Learning from Models,” in Models as Mediators by 
M.S. Morgan and M. Morrison (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Topic III: Models vs. Metaphors

Black, Max. 1962. Essays on “Metaphor” and “Model” in Models and 
Metaphor: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell UP.

Kuhn, Thomas S. 1979, Metaphor in Science, in Ortnoy A. (ed.), Metaphor 
and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Lakof, G. and Johnson M., 1980, Metaphors We Live By (selections), 
Chicago: Chicago UP.

Topic IV: Models and Paper Tools in the History of Science.

Kohler, Robert E. 1994. Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Klein, Ursula. 2003. Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of 
Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century. Stanford: Stanford UP.

Topic V: Models and Make-Believe

Galison, Peter. 1997. “Computer Simulations and the Trading Zone,” in 
Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. Chicago: University 
of Chicago Press. Selections.

Walton, K. 1993. Metaphor and Prop-Oriented Make-Believe, The European 
Journal of Philosophy, 1: 39–57

Topic VI: Models and the Problem of Truth

Wimsatt, William. 1987. “How False Models Lead to Truer Theories” in 
Nitecki, M. Neutral Models in Biology. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Oxford UP. 
Selected Chapters.

Topic VII: Models in the 3rd Dimension

De Chadavarian, S. and Hopwood, N. (eds.) 2004. Models: The Third 
Dimension of Science. Stanford: Stanford UP.

Griesemer, J. 1990. “Material Models in Biology.” PSA 1990, Vol. 2: 
79-93. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association.

Topic IIX: The Information Gene

Kay, Lily E. 2000. Who Wrote the Book of Life: A History of the Genetic 
Code. Stanford: Stanford UP.

Peter Beurton, Raphael Falk, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (eds.). 2000. The 
Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution. Historical and 
Epistemological Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Sarkar, S. 1996. Biological information: a skeptical look at some 
central dogmas of molecular biology, in S. Sarkar (ed.) The Philosophy 
and History of Molecular Biology: New Perspectives. Dordrecht: Kluwer