VOL. IV (XXI) 2009 - Departamentul de Filosofie si Stiinte ale ...

68 “FICTION” AND “MODEL” IN SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
interpretation of these partially concrete, partially abstract models imposes in
addition to the first category of models the knowledge of translation codes of
the isomorphic aspects from a structural relations’ system into another. At
the upper level of the hierarchy Black places the theoretical models which redescribe
the scientific field by means of/within metaphorical sentences (for
instance the metaphor of the clock universe in the contemporary science, the
representation of the electrical field with Maxwell in variation with an
incomprehensible imaginary fluid, the computer universe in Steve Wolfram).
As P. Ricoeur notes, in this case, interpretation is based on knowledge of the
meanings opened at the very intuition’s level.
Trying to express the specific characteristics of the theoretical model in
comparison to that of the metaphorical constructs in the field of philosophy
the French hermeneutist warns in Vaihinger’s manner that scientific
imagination cannot be reduced to some “psychology of invention”, as it is
actually a cognitive process with specific epistemological principles. If the
first types of models reconstruct more or less an original field of research, the
theoretical model on the other hand target the role of the scientific imaginary
in its heuristic description or re-description. In other words, the first two
categories of model have a mimetic function, where reconstruction equals
exemplification, and the theoretical models have a cognitive function, as redescription
means explanation of the field. This very function assures, in the
end, the possibility to distinguish scientific models from the linguistic
metaphors 13 .
Both Black and Hesse tried through the rationale of the theoretical
models to sketch some answer to the problem of theories’ genesis, initiated
by the hypothetical-deductive model in science. In Hesse’s view, the
hypothetical-deductive model in scientific knowledge must be added the
perspective of the scientific explanation to offer a “metaphorical description
about the field of the explanandum”. The possibility of the imaginary
constructs is thereby supported, especially that of the metaphorical
constructs, to refer not only to pre-existing entities but also and more to
entities whose occurrence becomes possible under the very influence of the
imagination’s process.
R. Rorty will submit to acid criticism the idea that metaphor may have a
cognitive function. As he takes over an objection previously put together by
13 „Scientific models are prototype, philosophically speaking, for imaginative
creations or schemas based on natural language and experience, but they go
beyond it by metaphorical extension to construct symbolic worlds that may or may
not adequately represent certain aspects of the empirical world. These symbolic
worlds all share with scientific models the function of describing and re-describing
the world; and for all of them it is inappropriate to ask for literal truth as direct
correspondence with the world. Symbolic worlds differ from scientific models,
however, in that it is not their function to represent the state of the natural
environment for purposes of prediction and control”; Arbib, M.A., Hesse, M.B.,
Op.Cit., p.161