In this thesis, I present a novel account of scientific modeling that achieves the stability and generalizability of static approaches with the flexibility and practical relevance of diachronic approaches. In this account, modeling is characterized by the use of a similarity relation for the purpose of surrogate reasoning. Many criticisms of similarity are based on the fact that there is no way to objectively assess similarity between two things that share some, but not all, features. This account does not rely on the inherently flawed notion of objectively assessing similarity. Instead, the focus is on subjective assessment of similarity, within the specific context of an agent using the similarity for surrogate reasoning. This account captures the diversity of models while providing coherence among common features and functions, as evidenced by application to a series of interrelated examples in a case study from mid-twentieth century cognitive psychology. The similarity/difference account advocated in this thesis is particularly significant because its demonstrated success, evidenced by the case study, dispels several misconceptions about the study of scientific models. Advocates of static approaches claim that a diachronic approach cannot provide the generalizability necessary for a unified account, but the functional and agent-oriented similarity/difference account proves otherwise. Advocates of practice-based approaches often suggest that imilarity is too restrictive to capture the diversity of scientific models, but the similarity/difference account demonstrates that this concern only applies to a radically naturalized concept of similarity. As part of an agent-oriented account, a non-naturalized concept of similarity can be flexible enough to capture the full range of scientific models. Combining a diachronic approach with the similarity relation usually associated with static approaches results in an account that can circumvent the issues usually associated with either diachronic approaches or similarity alone.

In this thesis, I present a novel account of scientific modeling that achieves the stability and generalizability of static approaches with the flexibility and practical relevance of diachronic approaches. In this account, modeling is characterized by the use of a similarity relation for the purpose of surrogate reasoning. Many criticisms of similarity are based on the fact that there is no way to objectively assess similarity between two things that share some, but not all, features. This account does not rely on the inherently flawed notion of objectively assessing similarity. Instead, the focus is on subjective assessment of similarity, within the specific context of an agent using the similarity for surrogate reasoning. This account captures the diversity of models while providing coherence among common features and functions, as evidenced by application to a series of interrelated examples in a case study from mid-twentieth century cognitive psychology. The similarity/difference account advocated in this thesis is particularly significant because its demonstrated success, evidenced by the case study, dispels several misconceptions about the study of scientific models. Advocates of static approaches claim that a diachronic approach cannot provide the generalizability necessary for a unified account, but the functional and agent-oriented similarity/difference account proves otherwise. Advocates of practice-based approaches often suggest that imilarity is too restrictive to capture the diversity of scientific models, but the similarity/difference account demonstrates that this concern only applies to a radically naturalized concept of similarity. As part of an agent-oriented account, a non-naturalized concept of similarity can be flexible enough to capture the full range of scientific models. Combining a diachronic approach with the similarity relation usually associated with static approaches results in an account that can circumvent the issues usually associated with either diachronic approaches or similarity alone.

As taxidermy increased in prominence in American natural history museums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the idea of trying to replicate nature through mounts and displays became increasingly central. Crude practices of overstuffing skins gave way to a focus on the artistic modelling of animal skins over a sculpted plaster and papier-mâché form to create scientifically accurate and aesthetically pleasing mounts, a technique largely developed at Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York. Many of Ward's taxidermists utilized their authority in taxidermy practices as they formally organized into the short-lived Society of American Taxidermists (1880-1883) before moving into positions in natural history museums across the United States. Through examinations of published and archival museum materials, as well as historic mounts, I argue that taxidermists at these museums reached an unspoken consensus concerning how their mounts would balance pleasing aesthetics with scientific accuracy, while adjusting their practices as they considered the priorities of numerous stakeholders. Taxidermists negotiated through administrative priorities, legacies of prominent craftsmen, and a battery of instructive materials, all claiming some authority as to what proper taxidermy could—and should—be. The shifts in taxidermy authority revealed truths about what taxidermy could mean, questions of how taxidermists identified themselves within the profession and to outsiders, practices for presenting taxidermy to museum visitors, and techniques for representing nature. This project traces the paths of consensus for developing techniques to construct museum taxidermy from the 1883 end of the S.A.T until the founding of the Technical Section of the American Association of Museums (AAM) in 1929. Two critics who book-end this project—Robert Wilson Shufeldt, an army doctor, naturalist, and museum critic, and Lawrence Vail Coleman, director of preparation and exhibition, American Museum of Natural History, and director of the American Association of Museums—identified similar characteristics that suggest a like-minded approach as to what constituted proper museum taxidermy among museum taxidermists. Museum taxidermy carried with it a set of characteristics: accuracy and a pleasing aesthetic for Shufeldt; feeling, unity, action, balance, reality, and size for Coleman. These two sets of criteria complemented each other as they reified consensus. What complicated this finding was that taxidermists themselves did not acknowledge them specifically, only relating to them in passing, if at all. Regardless, taxidermic practice seemed to be consistent across these decades. This study complicates the nature of scientific representation, in that it focuses a great deal on its artistry. Museum taxidermy is supposed to be an instructional tool, guiding museum visitors in the way they approach nature, and especially how they see animals, and focusing on teaching the science of animal behavior, biodiversity, and habitat, to name a few. It is a scientific object, representing the most up-to-date research in the field, but consensus surrounding it is not scientifically measurable. Instead, taxidermy consensus happened in hallways and back rooms (both literal and metaphorical), with little written down, and the mounts as the most substantial evidence that is had been achieved. Nevertheless, taxidermists negotiated the array of stakeholders present—museum administrators, naturalists, collectors, and the public—as they fashioned mounts that were both accurate and aesthetically pleasing representations of animal lives. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this project I look at museum taxidermy in United States natural history museums, from the 1880s to 1930s. In that 50-year span, taxidermy practices coalesced around a primary technique for mounting animal skins, using a wooden form and papier-mâché as the structure for stretching the skin over it. But there was more to this consensus than using the same techniques, as two critics who book-end this project—Robert Wilson Shufeldt, an army doctor, naturalist, museum critic, etc., and Lawrence Vail Coleman, director of preparation and exhibition, American Museum of Natural History, and director of the American Association of Museums—identified similar characteristics that suggest a like-minded approach as to what constituted proper museum taxidermy among museum taxidermists. I argue in this project that taxidermists reached an unspoken consensus around their craft that balanced scientific accuracy with a pleasing aesthetic, to achieve mounts that would be both scientifically meaningful and not off-putting to museum visitors. Museum taxidermy carried with it a set of characteristics: accuracy and a pleasing aesthetic for Shufeldt; feeling, unity, action, balance, reality, and size for Coleman. And these two complement each other as they reify consensus. What complicated this finding was that taxidermists themselves did not acknowledge them specifically, only relating to them in passing, if at all. Regardless, taxidermy seemed to be consistent across these decades. This study complicates the nature of scientific representation, in that it focuses a great deal on its artistic nature. Museum taxidermy is supposed to be an instructional tool, guiding museum visitors in the way they approach nature, and especially how they see animals. Museum taxidermy generally shies away from terrifying visitors with animal size and ferocity, focusing instead on teaching the science of animal behavior, biodiversity, and habitat, to name a few. In this sense, it is a scientific object, representing the most up-to-date research in the field. Consensus in the realm of taxidermy, and in scientific representation more broadly, is not scientific consensus, but more consistent with an artistic approach, like a posteriori recognitions of characteristics unique to artists or artistic movements. Taxidermy consensus happened in hallways and back rooms, with little written down, and the mounts as the most substantial evidence. Nevertheless, taxidermists negotiated the array of stakeholders present—museum administrators, naturalists, collectors, and the public—as they consistently made these mounts both accurate and aesthetically pleasing. And they still make sense when we see them, as they can be repurposed to tell new stories consistent with current understandings of animal lives.

Empirical educational research enjoys a methodological and theoretical debate that is characterized by a number of unresolved and lively debated controversies. This compilation thesis is an attempt to contribute to this debate using the toolbox of philosophy of science. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four essays. In the introductory chapter I identify three methodological and theoretical controversies that are discussed within the field of educational research. These are: 1) the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational research; 2) the controversy between cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning; and, 3) the controversy between realist and constructionist interpretations of theories of learning. I provide in the essays a critical assessment of the claims behind each of these controversies, and argue for an alternative reconstruction of these issues. In Essay I, I criticize a view about the interpretation of human action, labeled in the text as interpretivism. This view posits a sharp separation between the natural and social sciences, to the effect that the methods of the latter cannot be applied to the former. The first controversy seems to rest on this position. As I argue, the arguments in support of interpretivism are contradicted by actual research practice. I conclude that the interpretivistic claims lack support and that the general separation claim appears as problematic. A further debate has fueled the first controversy, that is, the supposed distinction between qualitative and quantitative methods. In Essay II, I argue against this distinction. More specifically, I discuss the concept of empirical support in the context of qualitative methods (for short, qualitative support). I provide arguments that although there are two specific and non-trivial properties of qualitative support, there is no methodological separation between quantitative and qualitative methods concerning empirical support. Considered together, the first two essays indicate two points of methodological continuity between educational research and other scientific practices (such as the natural sciences). I therefore conclude that the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational research rests in large part on unjustified claims. Essay III focuses on the second controversy. In this article I argue that Suárez’ inferential approach to the concept of scientific representation can be used as an account of scientific representation in learning, regardless of whether learning is understood as a cognitive or social phenomenon. The third controversy is discussed in Essay IV. Here, I discuss some ontological aspects of the framework of the actor-network theory. Reflecting on the use of this framework in the research field of Networked Learning, I argue that the assumption of an ontology of relations provides the solution for two puzzles about the ontology of networks. The relevance of my argument for the third controversy is that it suggests a point of connection between constructionist and realist interpretations of the ontology of learning. The last two essays suggest two points of continuities between theoretical frameworks that have been and still are argued to be incompatible. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p>

Many scientific disciplines rely on the construction and use of models: biomedical sciences are no exception. This PhD thesis addresses several aspects of the practice of scientific modeling. First, I discuss the nature of modeling as such, proposing a novel, complementary account of scientific modeling which I term the experimentation-driven modeling account and which drives the construction of mechanistic models in many fields of biological and biomedical research, such as cancer immunology. Second, I scrutinize an objection to the mechanistic account of explanation according to which the account fails to accommodate the common practice of idealizing difference-making factors. I argue that this objection ultimately fails because it is riddled with a number of conceptual inconsistencies. Third, I analyze the roles of similarity judgments in some fields of cancer research which employ a variety of mouse models to learn about the disease mechanisms, arguing that by appreciating the epistemic complexities it is possible to shed new light on more general philosophical debates regarding scientific representation. Fourth, mechanisms can also be studied using more theoretical apparatus in the form of simulations. I investigate an example of an agent-based model used to model the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2...