Author

Justin Price

Date of Award

Summer 2021

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Philosophy

First Advisor

Michael Dickson

Abstract

This dissertation studies how models become useful for scientific inquiry. Towards this study, I develop a theory on the cross-discipline transfer of mathematical models. The first part of this theory characterizes the way in which scientists must respond to the constraints in making a transferable model useable in their discipline. I invent the notion of a landing zone to identify the aspects of their domain that scientists prepare for the use of a transferrable model. The second part connects this response-to-constraints to cases of conceptual progress resulting from model transfer in biology and chemistry. The last part of this dissertation characterizes scientific inquiry as problem solving, where I invent a framework for identifying how scientists use models to frame problems so that they are easier to solve.

Rights

© 2021, Justin Price

Included in

Philosophy Commons

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