A representation of a thing, or, what is very different, the ideal of that thing. In other words, a model is generated and generative. Since a model is never the thing itself, one is presented with a loss of fidelity to the real thing through varied degrees of abstraction or partial sight. Witness, below, a photograph of penguins at the London Zoo examining a model of their future home (designed by the architecture firm Tecton in 1934) and an illustrated map of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.
Models rely on analogy or metaphor; this technique advances specific modes of viewing and thinking about the modeled subject and may bring new levels of clarity to areas of interest, often through the obfuscation of other modes or foci of viewing. The constellation of academic disciplines can be schematized in a number of ways (“constellation,” itself a model, evokes a way of imagining this environment): as an ecosystem or a confederation of nation-states, as a branching tree, a lineage, a network of nodes, and so on. Each model raises new questions: whether certain disciplines are borne out of others; whether some disciplines share symbiotic relations, while others, antagonistic; whether disciplines are amenable to interaction and exchange and, if they are, in what terms (see DISCIPLINE). Models presuppose superlatives—some best object, method, or product of research—and insist that scholars, students, and researchers target paragons, even on those (quite frequent) occasions when an ostensible “best” is hopelessly caught between verisimilitude and ideality (see EXCELLENCE). Models should therefore be handled with caution.
