Article Title：On understanding: Maxwell on the methods of illustration and scientific metaphor
Abstract：
In this paper I examine the notion and role of metaphors and illustrations in Maxwell\'s works in exact science as a pathway into a broader and richer philosophical conception of a scientist and scientific practice. While some of these notions and methods are still at work in current scientific research-from economics and biology to quantum computation and quantum field theory-,here I have chosen to attest to their entrenchment and complexity in actual science by attempting to make some conceptual sense of Maxwell's own usage; this endeavour includes situating Maxwell's conceptions and applications in his own culture of Victorian science and philosophy. I trace Maxwell's notions to the formulation of the problem of understanding, or interpreting, abstract representations such as potential functions and Lagrangian equations. I articulate the solution in terms of abstract-concrete relations, where the concrete, in tune with Victorian British psychology and engineering, includes the muscular as well as the pictorial. This sets the basis for a conception of understanding in terms of unification and concrete modelling, or representation. I examine the relation of illustration to analogies and metaphors on which this account rests. Lastly, I stress and explain the importance of context-dependence, its consequences for realism-instrumentalism debates, and Maxwell's own emphasis on method. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Maxwell; unification; models; illustrations; metaphors; scientific method
DOI: 10.1016/S1355-2198(01)00018-1
Source：STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN PHYSICS
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