Resumen de Understanding through modeling: : the explanatory power of inadequate representation

Markus I. Eronen, Raphael van Riel

• The claim that models are representationally inadequate, as the title of this special issue tentatively suggests, is provocative. Isn’t it the case that, by their very nature, models aim at idealization, approximation, and simplification? These features are often seen as merits rather than defects of models. Pragmatists and instrumentalists have argued extensively that this kind of “inadequacy” does not matter, as long as models serve their descriptive or predictive purposes. However, models also seem to play a vital role in understanding and explaining reality and in giving us descriptions of what there is; prima facie, their function does not reduce to merely enabling us to somehow get along. Given their representational “deficiencies”, it is not at all clear to which extent and how models can help us understand the world, or how they can possibly exhibit something like explanatory power.