Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery

by Magnani, Lorenzo; Nersessian, Nancy J.; Thagard, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780306462924
• ISBN10: 0306462923
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Plenum Pub Corp

Summary

The book Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, aims to explain how specific modeling practices employed by scientists are productive methods of creative changes in science. The study of diagnostic, visual, spatial, analogical, and temporal reasoning has demonstrated that there are many ways of performing intelligent and creative reasoning which cannot be described by classical logic alone. The study of these high-level methods of reasoning is situated at the crossroads of philosophy, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and logic: at the heart of cognitive science. Model based reasoning promotes conceptual change because it is effective in abstracting, generating, and integrating constraints in ways that produce novel results. There are several key ingredients common to the various forms of model-based reasoning to be considered in this presentation. The models are intended as interpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations. The models are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain. In the modeling process, various forms of abstraction, such as limiting case, idealization, generalization, and generic modeling are utilized. Evaluation and adaptation take place in the light of structural of structural, causal, and/or functional constraint satisfaction and enhanced understanding of the target problem is obtained through the modeling process. Simulation can be used to produce new states and enable evaluation of behaviors, constraint satisfaction, and other factors. The book also addresses some of the main aspects of the concept of abduction, connecting it to the central epistemological question of hypothesis withdrawal in science and model-based reasoning, where abductive interferences exhibit their most appealing cognitive virtues. The most recent results and achievements in the above areas are illustrated in detail by the various contributors to the work, who are among the most respected researchers in philosophy, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

Table of Contents

MODELS, MENTAL MODELS, AND REPRESENTATIONS	3	(98)
Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change	5	(18)
Nancy J. Nersessian
Tracing the Development of Models in the Philosophy of Science	23	(18)
Daniela M. Bailer-Jones
Using Models to Represent Reality	41	(18)
Ronald N. Giere
Models and Diagrams within the Cognitive Field	59	(16)
Kenneth J. Knoespel
Theories, Models, and Representations	75	(10)
Mauricio Suarez
How Scientists Build Models In Vivo Science as a Window on the Scientific Mind	85	(16)
Kevin Dunbar
DISCOVERY PROCESSES AND MECHANISMS	101	(96)
A Simulation of Model-Based Reasoning about Disparate Phenomena	103	(22)
David C. Gooding
Tom R. Addis
Scientific Discovery and Technological Innovation: Ulcers, Dinosaur Extinction, and the Programming Language Java	125	(14)
Paul Thagard
David Croft
A Hierarchy of Models and Electron Microscopy	139	(10)
Todd Harris
Expansion and Justification of Models: the Exemplary Case of Galileo Galilei	149	(16)
Vasilis Raisis
Simplifying Bayesian Inference: the General Case	165	(16)
Stefan Krauβ
Laura Martignon
Ulrich Hoffrage
Complexity versus Complex Systems: A New Approach to Scientific Discovery	181	(16)
F. Tito Arecchi
CREATIVE INFERENCES AND ABDUCTION	197	(130)
Model-Based Reasoning in Creative Processes	199	(20)
Joke Meheus
Model-Based Creative Abduction	219	(20)
Lorenzo Magnani
Abduction and Geometrical Analysis. Notes on Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe	239	(16)
Ilkka Niiniluoto
The Hierarchy of Models in Simulation	255	(16)
Eric Winsberg
Abducting Explanation	271	(22)
Vincent F. Hendricks
Jan Faye
Fictionalism and the Logic of ``As If'' Conditionals	293	(18)
Claudio Pizzi
Scientific Modeling: A Multilevel Feedback Process	311	(16)
Jan M. Zytkow
Author Index	327	(6)
Subject Index	333