Models and Phenomena: Bas van Fraassen’s Empiricist Structuralism

Abstract

Bas van Fraassen’s recent endorsement of empiricist structuralism is based on a particular approach to representation. He sharply distinguishes between what makes a scientific model M a successful representation of its target T from what makes M a representation of T and not of some other different target T’. van Fraassen maintains that embedment (i.e.: a particular sort of isomorphism which relates structures) gives the answer to the first question while the user’s decision to employ model M to represent T accounts for the representational link. After discussing the rationale for this approach, I defend that indexical constraints like those favoured by van Fraassen cannot be the last word concerning what makes a scientific model a representation of something in particular. Rather, I argue that (i) the representational role of models — at least of scientific models — is inextricably related to their ability to convey some knowledge about their purported target, and (ii) this is an effective constraint on the user’s decisions. Both claims cast some doubt on the aforementioned distinction insofar as not only success in representation, but also the existence of a representational relation, is rooted in our knowledge about the target.