Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Evidence and Knowledge from Computer Simulation

Parker, Wendy S.

Evidence and Knowledge from Computer Simulation Thumbnail


Authors

Wendy S. Parker



Abstract

Can computer simulation results be evidence for hypotheses about real-world systems and phenomena? If so, what sort of evidence? Can we gain genuinely new knowledge of the world via simulation? I argue that evidence from computer simulation is aptly characterized as higher-order evidence: it is evidence that other evidence regarding a hypothesis about the world has been collected. Insofar as particular epistemic agents do not have this other evidence, it is possible that they will gain genuinely new knowledge of the world via simulation. I illustrate with examples inspired by uses of simulation in meteorology and astrophysics.

Citation

Parker, W. S. (2022). Evidence and Knowledge from Computer Simulation. Erkenntnis, 87(4), 1521-1538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00260-1

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 3, 2020
Online Publication Date May 3, 2020
Publication Date 2022-08
Deposit Date May 20, 2020
Publicly Available Date May 20, 2020
Journal Erkenntnis
Print ISSN 0165-0106
Electronic ISSN 1572-8420
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 87
Issue 4
Pages 1521-1538
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00260-1
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1270398

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (683 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations