General and concrete phenomena: A conceptual framework for analysis of experiments and models

Both experiments and models are crucial in science. In this paper we will focus on the following questions about them: What are experiments and what are models? What is the relationship between them and how are they different? Are experiments and models equally good means for all scientific purposes, or do one of them have advantage over the other in some respects. Here we will offer a conceptual framework for dealing with these questions. First section will deal with Uskali Maki?s understanding of experiments and models, which highlits the concept of representation (Maki 2005). In the second section we will try to show that it is instead better to analyse experiments and models using the concepts of general phenomena and concrete phenomena, which will be introduced, as well as the concept of instantantiation. Using this conceptual framework, in the third section we will analyze experiments and models and make different claims about them than Maki does - Maki concludes that experiments and models are the same kind of thing, while we will point out to a nontrivial distinction between them. The distinction made here between experiments and models is very similar to the one made between them on the basis of the ?materials? of which they are made (Morgan 2005), but stating it in different terms and, we belive, more precisely . We will use our conceptual framework to try to show the adequacy of the distinction based on ?materials? and to show that Wendy Parker does not succeed in proving the opposite by the examples she give (sections 3.2 and 3.3). Using our conceptual framework, in sections 3.4 and 3.5, we will try to show that this difference in ?materials? makes experiments better means for acquiring new knowledge about (unexplored) phenomena and for testing theories than models.