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A Parser as an Epistemic Artifact: A Material View on Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Tarja Knuuttila  and
Atro Voutilainen
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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that models in scientific practice can be conceived of as epistemic artifacts. Approaching models this way accommodates many such things that working scientists themselves call models but that the semantic conception of models does not duly recognize as such. That models are epistemic artifacts implies, firstly, that they cannot be understood apart from purposeful human activity; secondly, that they are somehow materialized inhabitants of the intersubjective field of that activity; and thirdly, that they can function also as knowledge objects. We argue that models as epistemic artifacts provide knowledge in many other ways than just via direct representative links. To substantiate our view we use a language-technological artifact, a parser, as an example.

Type
Models and Modeling
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1484 - 1495
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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