Ulrich Frank and Klaus G. Troitzsch (2005)
Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation*
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
vol. 8, no. 4
<https://www.jasss.org/8/4/7.html>
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Received: 02-Oct-2005 Published: 31-Oct-2005
Jörg Becker, Björn Niehaves and Karsten Klose develop a framework for epistemological perspectives on simulation, which can be used to analyse and to systematise the implicit epistemological assumptions underlying most simulations. Their main concern is that these are often not made explicit and the framework they offer should help to explicate hidden assumptions.
Alex Schmid tries to answer the question "What is the truth of simulation?"For this purpose, he considers well known theories of truth to analyse how they could contribute to a concept of truth or appropriateness applicable to simulations.
Nuno David, Jaime Sichman and Helder Coelho analyse the methodological status of computer-based simulation in the social sciences. For this purpose, they introduce the term 'intentional computing', which accounts for the specific epistemological characteristics of agent-based simulation.
Günter Küppers and Johannes Lenhard distinguish between the natural sciences and the social sciences mainly under the aspect that the former enjoy having well-accepted mathematical models while the latter have not. They argue that in the former case validation is no problem once it can be shown that a computer simulation model performs exactly the numerical calculations postulated by the mathematical model. As the social sciences have not yet developed generally accepted mathematical models, validation in this case means trying to find that "some of the characteristics of the social dynamics known from experience with the social world are reproduced by the simulation".
Matthias Meyer, Bernd O. Heine and Oliver Strangfeld analyse the special validation problems which arise from the fact that in most cases the system modelled in a simulation is only a stylised fact instead of a part of the real world. Thus in a way they tackle the same aspect as Günter Küppers and Johannes Lenhard as what they call "characteristics of the social dynamics known from experience with the social world" are often enough nothing but stylised facts.
Riccardo Boero and Flaminio Squazzoni suggest validating simulation through empirical research. They discuss and classify various validation strategies, and they argue for case-based models which lend themselves to falsification..
Finally, Petra Ahrweiler and Nigel Gilbert present a framework for evaluating the quality of simulations. For this purpose, they differentiate various views on a simulation. To illustrate their approach, they introduce the case study of a 'simulated' coffee shop.
1The discussion can be found in the November 2003 section of http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/archives/simsoc.html, topics "simulation and explanation" and "theory and simulation".
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