Michel Ghins

Representation and the loss of reality objection

In this paper, I will focus on the following central question: how can an abstract entity – a model – possibly represent an existing observable entity, which is phenomenally accessible to us, but which is not abstract? This is what Bas van Fraassen calls “the loss of reality objection.” (van Fraassen B. C. 2008: 258) Instead of proposing a pragmatic dissolution of this objection as van Fraassen does, I will argue that our contact with phenomenal entities is grounded on propositions, dubbed “ontic”, that are true in a correspondence sense. Before we address this issue, a brief presentation of what I believe to be the main features of scientific representing is in order.