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Full Idea
To idealize is to trade accuracy in describing the actual for simplicity of description, and the compromise can sometimes be struck in different ways.
Gist of Idea
Idealisation trades off accuracy for simplicity, in varying degrees
Source
Philip Kitcher (The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge [1984], 06.5)
Book Ref
Kitcher,Philip: 'The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge' [OUP 1984], p.144
A Reaction
There is clearly rather more to idealisation than mere simplicity. A matchstick man is not an ideal man.
| 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] |