SIMULATION AND SIMILARITY Using Models to Understand the World (Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science)

WEISBERG Michael

ISBN 10: 0199933669 / ISBN 13: 9780199933662

Published by Oxford University Press, 2013. 9780199933662, 2013

About this Item

1st edn 3rd printing. 8vo. Original silver lettered black cloth (Fine), dustwrapper (diagonal crease on front flap - otherwise Fine in protective cover). Pp. xviii + 190, illus with figures and tables (previous owner's neat inscription on front free endpaper).

Seller Inventory # 186685

Bibliographic Details

• Title: SIMULATION AND SIMILARITY Using Models to Understand the World (Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013. 9780199933662
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199933669
• ISBN 13: 9780199933662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science

About this title

Synopsis

In the 1950s, John Reber convinced many Californians that the best way to solve the state's water shortage problem was to dam up the San Francisco Bay. Against massive political pressure, Reber's opponents persuaded lawmakers that doing so would lead to disaster. They did this not by empirical measurement alone, but also through the construction of a model. Simulation and Similarity explains why this was a good strategy while simultaneously providing an account of modeling and idealization in modern scientific practice. Michael Weisberg focuses on concrete, mathematical, and computational models in his consideration of the nature of models, the practice of modeling, and nature of the relationship between models and real-world phenomena.

In addition to a careful analysis of physical, computational, and mathematical models, Simulation and Similarity offers a novel account of the model/world relationship. Breaking with the dominant tradition, which favors the analysis of this relation through logical notions such as isomorphism, Weisberg instead presents a similarity-based account called weighted feature matching. This account is developed with an eye to understanding how modeling is actually practiced. Consequently, it takes into account the ways in which scientists' theoretical goals shape both the applications and the analyses of their models.

About the Author

Michael Weisberg is Department Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.