If Models Were Fictions, Then What Would They Be?

There has been growing interest in the idea that model descriptions should be thought of as similar to stories, and model systems should be thought of as akin to fictional characters. But if model systems were (like) fictional characters, what would they be? Two prominent approaches to fictional discourse have been pursued in the literature on models: realist approaches, which take models to be abstract objects that (in some sense) fit the model descriptions, and anti-realist approaches, which typically hold that the relevant discourse involves pretense in a way that enables us to deny that we ever refer to models. Both of these views have problems well known in the literature on fiction. These problems have motivated a third, increasingly popular approach to the ontology of fiction: an artifactual approach, according to which our (external) discourse about fiction refers to abstract artifacts. This approach has been little considered in the literature on scientific models—but this chapter argues that it has important advantages over the familiar alternatives. Most notably, an artifactualist approach can retain the advantages of the pretense view while giving a far more straightforward account of external historical, theoretical, and critical discourse about models. In short, bearing in mind the full range of discourse about models gives us reason to accept that there are model systems, where these are considered as a kind of abstract artifact. The main perceived drawback to artifactualist views is their supposed “ontological costs.” In closing, the chapter suggests why ontological qualms of this sort should be discounted.