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A Model-Theoretic Account of Representation (Or, I Don't Know Much about Art…but I Know It Involves Isomorphism)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Steven French
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Abstract

Discussions of representation in science tend to draw on examples from art. However, such examples need to be handled with care given a) the differences between works of art and scientific theories and b) the accommodation of these examples within certain philosophies of art. I shall examine the claim that isomorphism is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation and I shall argue that there exist accounts of representation in both art and science involving isomorphism which accommodate the apparent counterexamples and, moreover, allow us to understand how “impossible” artistic objects and inconsistent scientific theories can be said to represent.

Type
Models and Modeling
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1472 - 1483
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I am grateful to a number of people for discussions on this topic, including Otávio Bueno, Matthew Kieran, James Ladyman, and Mauricio Suarez but most especially Alirio Rosales and the MA students who took my “Issues in Philosophy of Science” module. Of course, I should take the blame for any artistic misjudgments or philosophical infelicities.

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