What is a Simulation Model?
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What is a Simulation Model? Juan M. Durán1 Received: 2 November 2019 / Accepted: 28 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Many philosophical accounts of scientific models fail to distinguish between a simulation model and other forms of models. This failure is unfortunate because there are important differences pertaining to their methodology and epistemology that favor their philosophical understanding. The core claim presented here is that simulation models are rich and complex units of analysis in their own right, that they depart from known forms of scientific models in significant ways, and that a proper understanding of the type of model simulations are fundamental for their philosophical assessment. I argue that simulation models can be distinguished from other forms of models by the many algorithmic structures, representation relations, and new semantic connections involved in their architecture. In this article, I reconstruct a general architecture for a simulation model, one that faithfully captures the complexities involved in most scientific research with computer simulations. Furthermore, I submit that a new methodology capable of conforming such architecture into a fully functional, computationally tractable computer simulation must be in place. I discuss this methodology—what I call recasting—and argue for its philosophical novelty. If these efforts are heading towards the right interpretation of simulation models, then one can show that computer simulations shed new light on the philosophy of science. To illustrate the potential of my interpretation of simulation models, I briefly discuss simulation-based explanations as a novel approach to questions about scientific explanation. Keywords Computer simulations · Simulation models · Computer-based explanation · Recasting · Representation · Novelty of computer simulations
* Juan M. Durán [email protected] 1
Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
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J. M. Durán
1 Introduction In recent years, philosophers have turned their attention to computer simulations and their epistemological value in scientific modeling and scientific practice. When faced with these issues, authors employ one of several strategies: they compare the epistemological power of computer simulations to laboratory experimentation (Morgan 2003; Parker 2009; Symons and Alvarado 2019; Ionescu 2018; Boge 2019); they analyze different forms of inferring knowledge from simulations (Winsberg 2001; Beisbart 2012); they hold extensive discussions on the notion of simulated data as different in kind from experimental and observational data (Barberousse and Marion 2013; Humphreys 2013); or they show how computer simulations are at the center of methodological, conceptual, and industrial changes in scientific research (Lenhard 2014). There are many insightful discussions in the philosophical literature about the epistemology of computer simulations. Most of this literature, however, takes
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