<特集：モデル> 理論観の転回とモデル概念

Abstract

The word "model" has a variety of meanings in many branches of science. Suppes (1960) asserted that those different use of the word can be related to that in mathematical logic. And further, he pointed out the usefulness of the model with this meaning in analyzing many aspects of scientific activity, such as Gedanken experiments and data comparison. Such an attention to the utility of the model later led to a new way of viewing scientific theories called "the Semantic Conception of Theories". In this paper, I survey the transition in the view of scientific theories, and see how important roles models play in the Semantic Conception.