Scientific Models as Abstract Epistemic Toolsfor Learning how to Reason

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Published: Jan 15, 2025
Updated: 2025-01-15
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2025-01-15 (2)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n38.2025.09
Keywords:
Scientific modelling, Representation, Language, Education, Pragmatics, Epistemic tool

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Juan Bautista Bengoetxea Cousillas
Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-1122

Abstract

The variety of scientific methodologies aimed at obtaining knowledge, generating beliefs,and promoting action is very wide. Both philosophy of science and science education havebeen concerned with critically assessing the virtues of the various scientific methods, especiallythe inductive and deductive ones. However, the emergence of new procedures specific to nonacademicsciences has encouraged the development of new reflective perspectives that can analyzethose virtues. From randomized controlled trials to epidemiological or clinical procedures, thePhilosophy of Science has been concerned with examining the virtues and also the defects of theirpractical set-up. The article assumes that modeling based on empirical evidence is a practice of high interest in linguistics. In order to substantiate this assumption, two philosophical approaches to scientific modeling distinguished by their respective research lines on the notion of representationare compared: the Representational and the Pragmatic. These accounts are then illustrated with abrief case taken from linguistics called language parsing, aimed at examining several particularsamples collected as evidence in early stages of experimental modeling. By way of conclusion, it isemphasized that both philosophical accounts provide analytical elements that are relevant for thekind of scientific reasoning around models and whose scope in science education may be of greatpractical interest.

Article Details

Issue
No. 38 (2025): (January-June 2025): The inductive method in the humanities and pedagogy
Section
Miscellaneous
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Author Biography

Juan Bautista Bengoetxea Cousillas, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

Doctor en Filosofía y Profesor Titular del Departamento de Filosofía de la Universidad de lasIslas Baleares. El presente texto de investigación es deudor del apoyo financiero de los Fondos FEDERpara el Desarrollo Regional de la Comunidad Europea y del Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación yUniversidades (Gobierno de España, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)), así como del Proyecto deInvestigación ‘Estándares de prueba y elecciones metodólogicas en la fundamentación científica de lasdeclaraciones de salud’ (FFI2017-83543-P). El autor agradece el respaldo de todas las institucionesmencionadas. Algunas publicaciones del autor son Ética e ingeniería (2010, con C. Mitcham),‘Knowledge and Moral Responsibility for Online Technology’ (2015, Springer), ‘Chemistry’ (2015,Macmillan), ‘Culture and Technology in Spain: From Philosophical Analysis to STS’ (2006, con C.Mitcham) (Technology and Culture) e ‘Intuition and Evidential Facts in Carnap’s Analysis of Space’(2019, Revista de Filosofia Aurora).

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