ABSTRACT
The use of minimal models is hard to understand as minimal models are especially simple when compared to their targets. This chapter outlines three examples of minimal models and considers three accounts of the use of minimal models. A modal approach restricts the use of minimal models to determine the modal properties of targets and how a target might possibly arise. A reinterpretation approach allows for other non-modal properties to be ascribed to targets based on a reinterpretation of the model or some other sort of selective use. A third proposal is that there is a special sort of minimal model explanation that exploits the character of a minimal model in some crucial way.
