PHIL 221 Lecture 13: 13th class
Document Summary
Abstraction: when we ignore concrete aspects in the world because they are thought to be irrelevant in the experiment. Examples of those aspects could be the colour of the object, or the temperature of the spring in a oscillator. Idealisation: deliberately changing certain aspect of the concrete object that is relevant, to make the experiment simpler. Example could be: no gravity, no friction, no air resistance . We construct these abstract entities, they are human creations. Giere says that we see models as abstract and idealised constructs created by the scienti c community not only as formulas. He wants to distinguish the differences between the model and the things that make up the model. Example of what is not a idle in the simple harmonic oscillator: It is rather a abstracted structure that scientist can understand and picture in their mind when they read textbooks.
