Similarity and Scientific Representation

Abstract

The similarity view of scientific representation has recently been subjected to strong criticism. Much of this criticism has been directed against a ‘naive’ similarity account, which tries to explain representation solely in terms of similarity between scientific models and the world. This article examines the more sophisticated account offered by the similarity view's leading proponent, Ronald Giere. In contrast to the naive account, Giere's account appeals to the role played by the scientists using a scientific model. A similar move is often made by defenders of resemblance theories of depiction, who invoke the role played by the artist, or by the viewers of a painting. In this article I look to debates over depiction to assess the difficulties facing those who wish to defend the similarity view of scientific representation. I then turn to examine Giere's account. Ultimately, I argue, this account is unsuccessful: while appealing to the role of scientists offers a promising way to defend the similarity view, Giere's own account does not capture what it is that scientists do when they use a model to represent the world.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Martin Carrier, Stacie Friend, Roman Frigg, Ulrich Krohs, Martin Kusch, Tim Lewens, Chris Pincock, Mauricio Suárez, Paul Teller, Torsten Wilholt, and especially Ronald Giere for extremely instructive discussion and correspondence on earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to thank two anonymous referees for this journal for their helpful comments and criticism.

Notes

I offer a detailed discussion of Callender and Cohen's argument in Toon (2010b, 2012).

Of course, we do not need to go on to provide an account of representation for mental states themselves; fortunately, this task can be left to philosophers of mind.

An exception is Callender and Cohen (2006).

Of course, contemporary resemblance theories of depiction are considerably more sophisticated than S ₂. For a helpful discussion, see Abell (2009).

I offer a defence of this view in Toon (2010b, 2012). Models without actual objects are also discussed in Suárez (2004) and Callender and Cohen (2006).

Note that not all resemblance theories claim that one form of resemblance is common to all depictions (see, for example, Abell 2009). I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing this point.

As we shall see, Giere's account avoids this challenge by requiring that the relevant similarities are specified on a case-by-case basis in theoretical hypotheses.

Isomorphism accounts of representation may be seen as offering one answer to this question (e.g. French 2003). Critics of isomorphism include Suárez (2003) and Frigg (2006).

This interpretation of Giere is followed by Downes (2009).