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The Methodological Value and the Structure of Models

Nikola Rašić

Abstract

There is a tendency of ever increasing use of models in the contemporary science, in empirical and theoretical research. In sociology, as well as in other sciences, it is a way to more accurate and objective results. However, there is little epistemological literature on models, although the definition of the very notion of model is the first step and determines the whole of research work. This article is an attempt of tackling theoretical problems relating to the nature, structuring and application of models. In that context particular emphasis is put on the assertion that cognitive and theoretical process is equally important in the process of model-building as in the research work itself.
Model is al o logical simplification of the object of research and it is thus an irreplaceable explanatory and auxiliary instrument, but it is simultaneously only a superficial and fragmentary survey of some of the relevant characteristics (which are not necessarily substantial), while it is by no means a complete simulator of the original. The author is trying to find the least common denominator for the fundamental categories of the general and mathematical linguistics and logic, and to determine the role of models in the continuity of general-particular-peculiar (i. e. corpus-fenotype-genotype and/or parole-langue-language). Although models are constructed on the higher level of abstraction, we are compelled to deal with it during the research as if it were on the same level as the original is, while in the interpretation we are elevating the level of abstraction again. Model is accordingly the connection between original and theory, and it should never be mixed up with the theory. In the context of the classification of signs by Pierce, model has the position of image, i. e. of a diagram which is characterized by actual similarity to the original on the level of relevant relations; the metaphor is on the level of index, while model and metaphor can be built on the symbolical level too, or with symbolical means, which is dependent upon the object and aim of the research work. Diagrammatic models built by symbolical devices are the most convenient in empirical research. Models which would be entirely symbolic are not-existent, because the symbolic system/language, i. e. the method of speaking about the object represents a diagram of cognitional relationships in theoretical, either mathematical or logical research, i. e. figurative models.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

156044

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/156044

Publication date:

31.12.1979.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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