Catherine Z. Elgin
Papers on Exemplification
-
Models as Symbols
(The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modelling
ed. Tarja Knuuttila, Natalia Carrillo, and Rami Koskinen. London: Routledge, 2024.)
Abstract:
Models are felicitous falsehoods. They are false in that they
idealize, distort, or omit aspects of their targets; felicitous in
that, by so doing, they highlight features of the phenomena that are
difficult to discern. This chapter extends Hughes' DDI account to
show how models embody and advance understanding. Models with targets
denote their targets. The inferences they license exemplify features
in an artificial setting, thereby affording epistemic access to
them. Model users then impute those features to the target. The
target is not held to literally instantiate the features imputed to
it. Rather, the model is effective when it is as if the target
instantiated those features, and the fact that it is as if the target
instantiated those features contributes to the understanding of the
target.
-
Selective Disregard
(Abstraction in Art and Science
ed. Julia Sanchez-Dorado and Chiara Ambrosio. London: Routledge, 2024.)
Abstract:
The world is bewilderingly complicated. To understand anything, we
need to overlook a lot and somehow organize the rest. What is most
salient in everyday life is not always what is epistemically or
practically important. Abstraction is a vehicle for distancing from
detail. Through abstraction, science and art omit irrelevancies,
streamline rough contours, judiciously simplify complexities. Using
examples drawn from the sciences and the arts, I will argue that they
do so by exemplifying significant. Often occluded features and
demonstrating their significance. Distortion, I will show, is a form
of abstraction in which non-standard features are exemplified. A
fruitful abstraction is one in which omissions, distortions and
simplifications provide resources for inferences that deepen our
insight and extend our epistemic range.
-
Exemplification: A Case Study
(QUANDO HÁ ARTE! Ensaios de homenagem a
Maria do Carmo d'Orey
ed. Suzana Ramos. Silveira: Letras Errantes, Lda., 2023, 217-233.)
Abstract:
Through a discussion of an installation called Hemlock Hospice, I
show how a stand of dying trees in the Harvard Forest was brought to
function as a powerful, indeed potentially transformative work of
art. Such transmutations of function are epistemically valuable.
They augment the insights science yields. To treat a mundane object
as art is to open our eyes to aspects of it and relations in which it
stands to other things - aspects and relations that we would
otherwise miss. I argue that the installation functions
simultaneously as a scientific symbol and as an aesthetic one.
Rather than being antithetical, the two functions are complementary.
-
Exemplification in Understanding
(Explaining Understanding: New Essays in Epistemology and the Philosophy
of Science ed. Stephen Grimm, Christoph Baumberger, and Sabine Ammon.
New York: Routledge, 2016, pp. 76-91.)
Abstract:
Understanding is an appreciation and endorsement of a comprehensive body
of information that is grounded in fact, is duly responsive to
evidence, and enables non-trivial evidence, argument and perhaps action
regarding the phenomena the information pertains to. I argue that
exemplification - the relation of a sample or example to whatever it
is a sample or example of - plays a major role in understanding. I
explicate the concept of exemplification and show how an effective
exemplar affords epistemic access to the features it exemplifies. I
then show how exemplification figures in our understanding of ethics,
mathematics and natural science.
-
Exemplification and the Dance
(Philosophie de la Dance
ed. Roger Pouivet. Rennes: Presses Universitaire
de Rennes, 2010.)
Abstract:
I argue that dance embodies and conveys understanding. To
understand a work of dance, spectators must understand the
genre's or choreographer's idiom; they must know how to read
the dance. In order for the dance to convey understanding of
something beyond itself, spectators must have reason to
accept or believe what the dance conveys. I argue that
dances exemplify literal and metaphorical features that they
share with other aspects of reality. They thereby make those
features salient and afford epistemic access to them. I
contrast classical ballet, modern dance, and postmodern
dance to show how, and to what end, dances exemplify. Among
the features exemplified, and sometimes problematized, are
philosophical features, like the relation between mind and
body, and political features like autonomy, democracy,
interdependence, and elitism. In exemplifying such
properties, a dance draws attention to them and stresses
their significance. It thus equips us to recognize them when
we see them again and intimates that we would do well to
attend to them. In some cases, we remain bewildered. We have
no idea why these people are doing those things, why anyone
would consider what is going on art. Then we can make no
sense of the work. Then our advance in understanding is
Socratic. Knowing that you do not know is the first step to
knowledge. The critical point is that an encounter with
dance can not only change the way we see the world; it can
improve the way we see the world.
-
Telling Instances
(Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation
in Art and Science, ed. Roman Frigg and Matthew
Hunter, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, 1-17; Enrahonar,
49, 2012, 68-89 (in Spanish, translated by Remei Capdevila).)
Abstract:
Science is held to be the mirror of nature, while art
imitates life. If so, representations in both disciplines
should resemble their objects. Against such mimetic
theories, I argue that exemplification rather than mere
resemblance is crucial. I explicate exemplification - a
referential relation of an exemplar to some of its
features. Because exemplification is selective, an exemplar
can diverge from its referent respects that are
unexemplified. This is why an idealization, which is
strictly false, can yield insight into the phenomena it
concerns. Drawing on analogies with pictorial
representations, I show how a model exemplifies features it
shares with its target, highlights the significance of those
features, and thereby yields an understanding of the target
system.
-
Exemplification, Idealization, and Understanding
(Fictions in Science: Essays on Idealization
and Modeling, ed. Mauricio Suárez, London:
Routledge, 2009, 77-90.
Abstract:
Thesis: Idealized scientific representations are fictions
that afford an understanding of the phenomena they concern
by exemplifying features they share with those phenomena. I
begin by explaining what exemplification is and what
epistemological role it plays. I then explain how a fiction
can exemplify something that obtains (but may be hard to
recognize) in fact. Finally, I argue that construing
scientific idealizations as fictions that exemplify features
they share with the facts makes sense of the way they figure
in understanding.