ABSTRACT
Most approaches in the philosophy of science focus on the structure and dynamics of theories but have little to say-if anything at all-about how these theories are applied to concrete systems. By contrast, Nancy Cartwright’s approach provides a detailed account of how empirical theories are in practice applied to reality and what role models play in this process. These views have developed and changed over the years-a process that is described in depth in Bailer-Jones’s contribution to this volume. The aim of the following sections is to analyze certain aspects of these views in more detail.
