 The Two Chief Epistemic Styles of Mathematical EcologyAlberto Fragio ()
A chapter in Historical Epistemology of Ecological Economics, 2022, pp 113-122 from Springer Abstract: Abstract In this chapter, I deal with the disciplinary speciation of mathematical ecology in the light of the neo-Kantian thesis according to which modern science ensued from the process of mathematization of nature. The issue of a historical epistemology of mathematical ecology finds a suitable place in this context, that is to say, in what I call “the two chief epistemic styles of mathematical ecology”, the “Galilean style” and the “fictional style”. The first one – the “Galilean style” – finds exemplification in astronomy studies and considers nature as an expression of rationality. The Galilean style works on the assumption that the laws of nature can be discovered and expressed in the language of mathematics. Differently, the “fictional style” takes mathematical representations as “fictions” aimed to adjust the empirical basis to a scientific theory. Its distinctive feature lies in assuming an ontological distance between the natural object and its mathematical representation. My main claim is that the historical oscillation between both chief epistemic styles proves the epistemological historicity of mathematical ecology. Date: 2022 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:conchp:978-3-030-94586-2_7 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-94586-2_7 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Contributions to Economics from Springer |
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