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Full Idea
Most model theories abstract from reality in order to focus on the essential nature of some kind of process or system of relations. ... The point of idealizing in this case is not to simplify, but to eliminate what is not essential.
Gist of Idea
The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential
Source
Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 4.03)
Book Ref
Ellis,Brian: 'Scientific Essentialism' [CUP 2007], p.153
A Reaction
I like this idea a lot. It is where scientific essentialism cashes out in actual scientific practice. Ellis's example is the idealised Carnot heat engine, which never can exist, but which captures what is essential about the process.
| 9791 | Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement [Aristotle] |
| 22746 | If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 10500 | No one denies that a line has width, but we can just attend to its length [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| 22591 | We know perfection when we see what is imperfect [Murdoch] |
| 13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 18075 | Idealisation trades off accuracy for simplicity, in varying degrees [Kitcher] |
| 18206 | Science idealises the earth's surface, the oceans, continuities, and liquids [Maddy] |