Imagination drives scientific modelling
Research on the SCIMOD project looked to generate new insights into the nature of scientific modelling and model-based reasoning. “In particular, SCIMOD focused on changing our current understanding of the nature of models and how we can learn with them,” explains Dr Fiora Salis, the project’s Marie Curie Fellow. From imagination to fiction to science and reality Work included a rigorous study of the analogy between models and fiction, understanding the latter as crucially relying on the imagination. Furthermore, SCIMOD “developed a novel theory of models as fiction that rejects the recurrent equivocation in the philosophy of science between fictionality and non-existence,” says Dr Salis. Focusing on the crucial role of the imagination in characterising the nature of models as fictions, the team explored imaginative activities that mark the cognitive engagement of scientists with models. SCIMOD also advanced a defence strategy to counter criticisms of the fiction view of models. Cross-disciplinary approach and outcomes Project research applied the normative and descriptive methodology of analytical naturalised philosophy of science. This approach relies on using examples and case studies, constructing concepts and building hypotheses on the one hand and collecting and analysing examples to create a focused collection of works on the other. The Marie Curie Fellow detailed the project’s most important take-away: “Scientific models require propositional imagination, which is an ability to make assumptions and consider alternative possibilities, to use symbols and representations of things.” In outlining the project’s key final results, Dr Salis noted: “Scientific models are akin to the fictions of literature and the arts to the extent that they crucially rely on the scientists’ imagination for their construction and development.” Another finding was that scientists working to construct and develop models deploy a very particular kind of imagination that is propositional imagination of the make-believe variety. This ‘make-believe’ is a special type of imaginative activity involving props that constrain a model’s content. As to the important role of imagination, Dr Salis explains in simple terms, is “that imagination contributes to the generation of hypotheses that are likely true and that can be tested in reality.” Engaging with scientists for scientists SCIMOD partners engaged and collaborated with colleagues from philosophy and from the natural and social sciences. This widened the range of considerations in exploring and deciding on precisely-stated questions. The project characterised other deliverables, such as conference presentations and other public-engagement activities involving both specialised and non-specialised audiences in Argentina, Europe and the United States. The work has resulted in various publications, including book chapters and peer-review articles. The knowledge disseminated in these materials is of value to scientists, including a broader audience of researchers in the humanities and the social sciences. Aware that some might take issue with the analogy between fiction and models, Dr Salis clarifies that SCIMOD qualified the correct notion of fiction to be used. That is, “a notion of fiction as a counterfactual scenario known by everyone to be at variance with actual facts but that can nevertheless help us to focus on important aspects of reality that would be otherwise difficult to grasp.” The vision behind this work, continuing beyond the project’s mandate, is to open new lines of research by introducing a novel perspective from aesthetics into the philosophy of science.
Keywords
SCIMOD, fiction, imagination, philosophy of science, model-based reasoning