“Model” is one of the most fascinating and colorful topics in the history of mankind.

 

Models can be concrete or abstract, drawn or formalized, pictorial or abstracted. Craftsmen and scientists operate models, artists and politicians create and use models, children and researchers play with models, everyday life and religion are filled with models. We can find that not only men, but also gods and animals design, construct and use models.

 

In the history of mankind we can trace the design, construction and use of models some million years. It starts with the development of consciousness and the idea of causality and matriarchy. Then man developed spacial competence and  other mental patterns such as morale, competition and cooperation, and ritual. In the stone age a „creative explosion“ took place. Since around 6000 BC we have affectionately-crafted little models of houses and temples, ships and vehicles, of herds of animals and dyads of animals. Of later periods we find craft scenes and ground plans, toys and jointed dolls, etc.

 

The roots of the concept (term; word; notion) of “model” are found in the Latin „modulus“, a diminutive of “modus”. „Modulus” appears around 40 BC. It was used in the scholarly world until 1750; in English it is still used today. After 1000 AD, “modulus” appeared in the Roman and German languages at four different times: as mould and moulding, modulation, modulus, model and module. Since the 16^th century the word model has been used, not only for buildings and machines, men and little figures but also for mental designs and hypotheses. Whoever complains about the multitude of functions and uses of the word model or tries to ban some meanings, fights against at least 450 years of the multiple use of „model“ and its cognate words.

 

Parallel to the boom of publications with the word “model” in the title since 1942, the babel of designing and using models has grown. This has at last two reasons: scholars are shy to define the concepts they use; in addition they mindless use various other undefined words as representation and analogy, copy and image, pattern and metaphor, icon and simulacrum, theory and law, etc.

 

The more than 110 different meanings of model and its cognate words can be grouped pragmatically into 25 chapters according to their main function or the worlds they create. The most general functions are: idea, paragon and draft, analogy and measure, visualization, representation and substitute, as well as mould and cast, original and copy. Of course the boundaries are blurred and different allocations are possible.

Most interesting is that for some kinds of models there have been theoretical approaches since the Old Greeks or in the Renaissance times, whereas for other kinds we have the first attempts in the 19th century.

 

For an overview of all chapters and subchapters see:

Chapters and subchapters: Model history is culture history

 

 

bibliography see: Literatur: Modell, Model, Modellierung (1450-2007)

       (bibliography: model, modeling, modelling)

                               Literatur: Modell nach Sachgebieten (1745-2007)

       (bibliography model: special topics)

 

 

Only in German:

Chronologie der Modellverwendung und Modellherstellung

Modellgeschichte in Kurzform

Vom Bewusstsein, dass wir Modelle verwenden

Lexika und Enzyklopädien der Aufklärungszeit

model: kinds - overviews

 

 

01: General Introduction

Multiple use and meaning of „model“ and its cognate words

 

Figure 01: Models in the history of mankind

Figure 02: Model history & theory matrix

Figure 03: Functions of model

Figure 04: Functions of models by Klaus Dieter Wüstneck (1969)

Figure 05: Functions of models: input - processing - output

Figure 06: Some functional descriptions: Model(s) as ...

Figure 07: Some functional descriptions: ... as (a) model(s)

Figure 08: How to categorize models

Figure 09: 25 categories of models and its cognate words

Figure 10: Kinds of models, with some examples

Figure 11: Model: 4 approaches

Figure 12: Different techniques to produce models

Figure 13: 12 main meanings of mould, moulding, modulation, module, model and modulus

Figure 14: Many rivals of the concept of „model“

 

see also: Allgemeine Nachschlagewerke/ dictionaries and encyclopedias

                  Modelle: Die 66 wichtigsten Publikationen aus 6 Jahrhunderten

                 Literatur: Modell nach Sachgebieten

                 The Concept of Model and ist Triple History (on: synonyms)

                 The Concept of Model: Definitions and Types (on: classification)

                 Mind and World (More than 24 theories 1950-2000)

 

 

02: Gods construct and use models

 

03: Animals construct and use models

 

 

04: The long way from „modulus“ to „model“

 

Figure 15: Roots, development and use of the word "modulus" in European languages

Figure 16: The Indo-European root “me-“ and the etymology of modulus

Figure 17: Oxford Latin Dictionary: Passages for modul-

Figure 18: Quintus Horatius Flaccus: Passages with „modul-„

Figure 19: Marcus Tullius Cicero

Figure 20: Marcus Terentius Varro: De re rustica

Figure 21: Lucius Apuleius Platonicus: Metamorphoses at alia

Figure 22: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio: De architectura libri 10

Figure 23: Albius Tibullus: Lygdarum aliorumque elegiae

Figure 24: Gaius Plinius Secundus: Naturalis Historia

Figure 25: Gellius: Noctes Atticae

Figure 26: Frontinus: De aquaeductu urbis Romae

Figure 27: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus

Figure 28: „modulus“ in the Middle Ages

Figure 29: Oxford Latin Dictionary: exemplar, exemplum

Figure 30: model: Etymology, in Dictionaries, etc.

Figure 31: Du Cange: Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis: modellus

Figure 32: Latin: modellus

Figure 33: Italian: modello – early records

Figure 34: „Modellus“ und „modelli“ beim Bau des Florentiner Doms und den ersten Architekturtheoretikern

Figure 35: Michael Hirst and Carmen Bambach Cappel: A Note on the Word Modello

Figure 36: Leon Battista Alberti: De pictura / Della pittura

Figure 37: Alberti: De re aedificatoria - on models (moduli)

Figure 38: Alberti: De re aedificatiora - on models (exemplaria, exempla)

Figure 39: Early use of „model“ by Filarete (1464) and di Giorgio (1490)

Figure 40: Shakespeare and modell, module

Figure 41: Francis Bacon: Novum Organon (1620), New Atlantis (1627)

 

 

05 Reflections on the use of model

 

Figure 42: Ernst Mach: Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung (1883)

Figure 43: Ernst Mach: Erkenntnis und Irrtum (1905)

Figure 44: Ernst Mach: The Science of Mechanics

Figure 45: Ernst Mach: Knowledge and Error

Figure 46: Heinrich Hertz: Die Prinzipien der Mechanik (1894)

Figure 47: Heinrich Herz: The Principles of Mechanics

 

 

Idea

 

I: Archetype, idea

 

II: Abstraction, idealization, sign

 

III: Type

 

Paragon

 

IV: Pattern, prescription, plan

 

Figure 48: Process models for management and engineering

 

V. Paragon, idol

 

Draft

 

VI: Draft, design, hypothesis

 

Figure 49: Theories of imagination

Figure 50: The first model theory: Leon Battista Alberti (around 1450/1460)

Figure 51: Simon Sturtevant’s „Heuretica“ (1612)

Figure 52: „Paper tools“ and 3D-models in chemistry in the 19th century

Figure 53: Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Figure 54: Modern theories of design (1970-2005)

 

VII: Explanation, interpretation

 

VIII: Theory

 

Figure 55: Different kinds of pictures and shapes

 

 

Analogy

 

IX: Analogy

 

Figure 56: Mary Hesse on analogies (1967)

Figure 57: Theoretical approaches to analogy (1800-2001)

 

Measure

 

X: Measure

 

XI: Shape, regulation

 

 

Visualization

 

XII: Visualization, illustration

 

Figure 58: Symbols and Metaphors

Figure 59: Illustrations and illustrated books for instruction

Figure 60: Drawings of descriptions and drawings of explanations

Figure 61: Pierre Duhem on the model craze of the English school

Figure 62: Henri Poincaré on Maxwell, analogy and images (1905)

 

XIII: Interpretation of a theory

 

Figure 63: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractuatus logico-philosophicus (1921)

Figure 64: Rudolf Carnap: „Interpretations“ of calculi (1939/42)

Figure 65: Alfred Tarski: Definition of „model“ (1935/36)

Figure 66: Definitions of logical, mathematical and metamathematical models

Figure 67: Dictionary definitions of „model“ in logic

Figure 68: Encyclopaedia Britannica: „Model theory“ (1976)

 

Representation

 

XIV: Representation, description, image

 

Figure 69: Definitions: Models as representations

Figure 70: Anatomical wax models

Figure 71: Use of experimental models

Figure 72: Simulation: classical definitions

Figure 73: Kinds of simulation

Figure 74: Theories of representation

Figure 75: What represents and/or describes what? According to John H. Holland et al.: Induction, 1986

 

XV: Sample, specimen, guinea pig

 

XVI: Worlds of dreams

 

Figure 76: 25 worlds of models/ model worlds from dreams to science

 

XVII: Worlds of plays & games

 

XVIII: Worlds of art & entertainment

 

Figure 77: Categories of art

 

XIX: Worlds of media & internet

 

XX: Worlds of teaching & learning

 

Substitute

 

XXI: Record

 

XXII: Emotional & cult object

 

XXIIII: Substitute

 

 

XXIV: Mould &/or cast

 

Figure 78: Mould: definitions

 

XXV: Original &/or copy