Representation and artefactualism: towards a synergic understanding of scientific modelling

Abstract

In their investigation on the epistemic role of scientific models, many philosophers of science have historically focused on scientific representation. In this received view, a model serves as a system that represents a target system – a portion of phenomena of interest. However, this representational view has been criticised, particularly by proponents of so-called artefactualism. This view contrasts models’ artefactual nature with the representational perspective. This paper has two aims. First, it clarifies the points of disagreement between artefactualism and the representational view I support, which bases representation on interpretation, denotation, exemplification and de-idealisation functions – rather than similarity or isomorphism. Second, it offers a synergistic solution that incorporates several insights of artefactualism within a more sophisticated representational account.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Sartori, L. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8457-7100
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Artefactualism; Scientific representation; Models; DEKI
Dates:	Submitted: 6 March 2025 Accepted: 4 February 2026 Published (online): 12 March 2026 Published: 12 March 2026
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Date Deposited:	16 Mar 2026 12:51
Last Modified:	16 Mar 2026 12:51
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s11229-026-05490-4
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:239163

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Representation and artefactualism: towards a synergic understanding of scientific modelling

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