CONOSCENZA TACITA E ARGOMENTAZIONE RETORICA NEI MODELLI DI SIMULAZIONE SOCIALE

The process of defining representations of computational simulation models in the social sciences is not only logical, but also interpretative, in that the “tacit knowledge” of Polanyi (1966) and also rhetoric – the knowledge of “how we speak” and “how we write” – come into play. Within the social sciences, the relationship between the data of a simulation, on the one hand, and the empirical facts, on the other, remains a problem with no easy solution. Many social scientists who make use of simulation maintain that its principal role is that of a tool that is capable of constructing and testing social theories. To better understand this role, therefore, we need to define what is meant by the term “scientific theory”. There are, essentially, two types of scientific theory that are constructed and tested by means of simulation models: 1) systems of propositions that interpret, in some particular way, a set of empirical facts; 2) systems of propositions depending on an interpretation by way of an analogy derived from a different scientific field. This paper analyses, for each type of theory, what rhetorical strategies the authors of the simulation models use, and what is the “tacit knowledge” they based upon.