Introduction: models, images and representations

Abstract

This text provides an overview of the articles published in this issue. The notions of image and/or model are central for all their arguments; and all recognize that these notions are both polysemic and vague, because they reflect a multiplicity of meanings, interests and contexts, and serve for transmitting meaning between different contexts. The articles fall into two groups. Those in the first group share an emphasis on images as amplifiers of our capacities of representation, perception, calculation, evocation, synthesis, structuration, and making links between different conceptual territories. Those in the second group share a view of scientific knowledge that emphasizes the function of models in legitimated and consensual knowledge