Abstrakt
Abstraction and Idealization in Scientific Modeling": It is an indisputable fact that, facing the complexity of the world, scientists employ various techniques by which they build simplified models of real as well as postulated systems. Two such widely discussed techniques are the processes of abstraction and idealization.
What is the difference between them? Furthermore, is it all that important to conceptually distinguish among the two? In this talk I will review number of proposals for making such distinction, and show that not only they are problematic, but they also do not capture the full range of simplifications scientists make. I will argue that making these notions more precise is key for clarifying several other debates that take place in contemporary philosophy of science, and that using a naïve distinction which is something that seems to be common practice poses danger to viability of these other debates.