Sadegh Mirzaee PhD

August 1, 2026 until February 27, 2027

Affiliation: Technical University of Darmstadt, DE

Research for a study about:

Carnap's Notion(s) of Model: From Formal Structures to Heuristic Devices 

Scientific models have received increasing attention in recent philosophy of science (e.g., Frigg & Nguyen, 2020; Knuuttila et al., 2024; Magnani & Bertolotti, 2017; Morgan & Morrison, 1999). Yet models have a tensive character. On the one hand, they have been conceived as formal structures, bound to logic, set theory, and the ideal of a reconstructed scientific language (e.g., Carnap, 1930, 1966; Suppe, 1977; Tarski, 2002 [1936]; Van Fraassen, 1980). Even when models have been appreciated as heterogeneous devices, their functions have been restricted to didactic, illustrative, or aesthetic roles. On the other hand, models in scientific practice are strikingly heterogeneous: scale models, mathematical equations, computational simulations, model organisms, and the like. They also perform a variety of functions, including representational, explanatory, predictive, and exploratory ones among others (see Downes, 2020; Frigg & Hartmann, 2020).
This tension—both ontological (what models are) and functional (what models do)—marks a contrast between the formal attitude that dominated philosophy of science in the early twentieth century (in both syntactic and semantic views of science) and the pragmatic attitude that has come to the fore in recent decades (e.g., Knuuttila, 2011; Suárez, 2024), that has affinities with the modeling attitude of the late nineteenth-century. The central question of this research is whether the seeds of a pragmatic conception of model can already be found within the formal tradition of Vienna Circle—specifically, within Carnap’s own work.

Lecture

Carnap's Conception(s) of Model: From Formal Structures to Heuristic Devices 

Philosophy of Science Colloquium 

Date: November 26, 2026

Time: 4.45 pm -6.15 pm CET

Venue for all talks: Lecture Hall 2i, NIG Universitätsstraße 7, 2rd floor, NIG/ Neues Institutsgebäude, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna

Abstract: tba