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Inverse View
It is not the case that Models are real entities because model descriptions exist
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Reasons For
2 perspectives
Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
The existence of a description does not entail the existence of the entity the description purports to describe, as Frege's distinction between sense and reference demonstrates.
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2.
Model descriptions can be meaningful and scientifically useful even when no corresponding real entity satisfies them, as with frictionless planes or ideal gases.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Goodman and Quine's nominalist tradition holds that abstract objects posited solely by virtue of linguistic or descriptive practice lack genuine ontological standing.
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2.
Conflating the reality of a representational vehicle with the reality of what it represents commits a use-mention error that undermines the ontological inference.
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Reasons Against
1 perspective
Reason against
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1.
What counts as the model are the model descriptions and their content, not the imaginings those descriptions prescribe
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2.
Descriptions are real, existing objects
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