Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2017

 

The Theory of Contextual Identity: A Solution to the Problem of Scientific Representation

(Abstract)

 

Wei Yidong

 

Representation has become a core concept in disciplines including cognitive science and psychology, and this is even truer for research on the philosophy of science. Scientific representation is more specialized, complex and abstract than general representation. It is the core of numerous theories, including graphic language, naturalism, structuralism, semantics and pragmatics. All of these have some explanatory power but fall short in dealing with scientific representation, primarily because they fail to analyze the contextuality of representation and the identity of representational relationships, and hence cannot lead us deeper into the true nature of scientific representation. As a foundation for ontological interpretation, context provides a framework for resolving the question of scientific representation. In this framework, representation is understood as the referential relationship between two objects within a particular context. Scientific representation based on contextual identity uses intermediate objects—concepts serving as reference, theories serving as sets of rules, models serving as reasoning tools and thought experiments serving as hypotheses—to refer to the goal objects.