相似性:模型与世界的关系新探

Similarity: Relationship Between Model and the-World

"科学模型是如何表征世界的?"这一问题近年来成为科学哲学领域的热点,围绕此问题也涌现了一批不同的哲学见解,如语义学观点、虚拟主义观点、推理工具观点、相似性观点,等等。文章着重考察科学模型表征世界的相似性观点,梳理此观点近年来的发展、演变,尤其是到瓦兹伯格之后的形式化与精致化演进。最后,文章试图指出相似性进路的某些理论难点问题。

The problem of how scientific models represent the world becomes one hotspot issue in philosophy of science in recent years,around which a number of philosophical insights emerged,including semantic view,fictionalism view,inferential tools view,similarity view,and so forth. This paper focuses on examining the similarity view with respect to the representation problem,and sorts out its development and unfolding in recent years,especially Weisberg＇s formalized and sophisticated version. Finally,the paper points out several theoretical problems of the similarity view.