[Revised entry by Roman Frigg and James Nguyen on May 20, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Science provides us with representations of atoms, elementary particles, polymers, populations, pandemics, economies, rational decisions, aeroplanes, earthquakes, forest fires, irrigation systems, and the world's climate. It's through these representations that we learn about the world. This entry explores various different accounts of scientific representation, with a particular focus on how scientific models represent their target systems. As philosophers of science are increasingly...