Pragmatism, Fictionalism, and Scientific Model Building

DOI 10.36446/af.e1051 PRAGMATISM, FICTIONALISM, AND SCIENTIFIC MODEL BUILDING Pragmatismo, ficcionalismo y la construcción de modelos científicos Nélida Gentile a https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-6717 Susana Lucero b https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2967-8849 a b Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Abstract In our present article, we first offer a critical review of the pragmatic conception of science and how this doctrine has evolved to the present day. Secondly, we propose to examine the model-target relationship whose epistemic value has been questioned by some advocates of the pragmatic view. One of the main goals of the paper is to show that including the model-target relationship in some particular context —for example in the inferential view of models—, is not at all incompatible with the pragmatic conception. On the other hand, we examine the relationship between pragmatism and fictionalism in the context of model building. Regarding this issue, we reject the position we have called full fictionalism and assume a deflationary attitude, a narrow fictionalism that admits only one class of non-realistic components of a model: those that refer to no existing entities. Key words: Scientific Models; Methodological Pragmatism; Scientific Pluralism; Representational Relationship; Fictionalism; Cognitive Function. Resumen En el presente artículo, ofrecemos en primer término una revisión crítica de la concepción pragmática de la ciencia y cómo esta doctrina ha evolucionado hasta la actualidad. En segundo lugar, nos proponemos examinar la relación modelo-target cuyo valor epistémico ha sido cuestionado por algunos defensores de la visión pragmática. Uno de los principales objetivos del trabajo es mostrar que incluir la relación modelo-target en algunos contextos particulares —por ejemplo, en la concepción inferencial de modelos— no es en absoluto incompatible con la visión pragmática. Por otra parte, exploramos la relación entre pragmatismo y ficcionalismo en el contexto de la construcción de modelos. Con respecto a este tópico, rechazamos la posición que hemos denominado “ficcionalismo completo” y asumimos una actitud deflacionaria, “ficcionalismo estrecho”, el cual admite ANÁLISIS FILOSÓFICO 45(2) - pISSN 0326-1301 - eISSN 1851-9636 - CC: BY-NC - (noviembre 2025) 343-367 344 NÉLIDA GENTILE - SUSANA LUCERO solo una clase de componentes no realísticos de un modelo: los que refieren a entidades no existentes. Palabras clave: Modelos científicos; Pragmatismo metodológico; Pluralismo científico; Relación representacional; Ficcionalismo; Función cognitiva. 1. Introduction Although the question of scientific models and their representative function originated when the semantic view of theories gained space in the academic field, the problem has taken on a new perspective in the last decades, giving a fundamental role to the imagination. This has led to the emergence of the so-called “fictionalist conception of scientific models”. Along with the fictionalist tendencies in dealing with models, a purely pragmatic account of scientific modeling has recently grown. Moreover, within the pragmatist doctrine, a branch has emerged in the last decades of the twenty-first century that focuses mainly on methods and procedures used in concrete scientific research; that approach is known as methodological pragmatism. A distinctive feature of general pragmatic theory is that it highlights the practice and uses of model building rather than the representational relationship between the model and its target. In addition, many advocates of the pragmatic view have incorporated fictionalism because they emphatically value the role of the non-realistic components of a model in the acquisition of knowledge. As a consequence, it has introduced a specific research topic: the elucidation of how assumptions that have no correspondence, in reality, contribute to the production of knowledge of aspects of the world. Indeed, a considerable number of philosophers have devoted themselves to elucidating the role of fiction in model building. Most of these proposals take as referents two classical theories of fictions: Vaihinger’s Philosophy of ‘as if’ (1935) and the pretense theory of Kendall Walton (1990). Those who follow Walton’s view offer an ontological and epistemic characterization of scientific models, which are considered props in games of make-believe (Frigg, 2006, 2010a, 2010b; Toon, 2012a, 2012b, 2016; Levy, 2012, 2015). Whereas those who adopt Vaihinger’s lines of reasoning give priority, in most cases, to the cognitive function of fictions rather than their nature, and emphasize the fundamental role they accomplish in the production of scientific knowledge. Some scholars have set aside the truth value of fiction and focused on the ability to allow quick and expeditious inferences about the objective phenomenon (Suárez, 2009, 2010). By ANÁLISIS FILOSÓFICO 45(2) - (noviembre 2025) PRAGMATISM, FICTIONALISM, AND SCIENTIFIC MODEL BUILDING 345 adopting this methodological strategy about the truth value of fictional statements, they distance themselves from Vaihinger’s original purpose. It is worth recalling Vaihinger’s claim about the falsity of all fictions: “I wanted to give a complete enumeration of all the methods in which we operate intentionally with consciously false ideas, or rather judgments” (1935, p. xli, our italics). Regarding the role of fictionalism, we point out some difficulties that pragmatism faces when it embraces a strong form of this position; we also state our preference for a more deflationary version of it. We analyze in this article the main postulates of both pragmatism and fictionalism and offer our point of view on each position. Regarding pragmatism, we propose to reappraise the representation relation as a methodological strategy within some scientific contexts of model building. Furthermore, we argue that the representational relation is fully compatible with the pragmatic view of models. As for fictionalism, we discuss the weight of fictions in the structure of models and favor a deflationary narrow account on this subject. The topics to be developed are ordered as follows: section two deals with the pragmatic account of models and the thesis of scientific pluralism. Section three presents some criticisms of the representational conception of models. In this same section, we propose to re-evaluate the model-target relation and define its limits and validity in the context of the pragmatic view. In section four, we examine the relationship between pragmatism and fictionalism and provide our point of view about the role of fiction in model building. Section five summarizes our main conclusions. 2. The Pragmatic Account of Models and the Relationship to Scientific Pluralism 2.1. Antecedents of the philosophical pragmatist perspective Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that flourished (...truncated)