ABSTRACT
Mechanisms and models are two of the most intensively studied areas in recent philosophy of science, and there are clear points of connection between these fields. This chapter describes some common and important topics in the philosophical literature regarding scientific modeling. It illustrates how these topics arise in the study of mechanistic science specifically. Scientific modeling involves three relata: the description of the model, the model itself, and the part of the world under investigation. The chapter focuses on three prominent issues regarding this framework: first, the ways in which models can be abstract and idealized—how they diverge from being complete and veridical representations of their targets; second, the relation of similarity that is meant to hold between model and target system; third, the ontology and individuation of different types of models, especially in the case of models that are mathematical or highly abstract.
