Contents: Preface. - Introduction. - Science as a caricature of reality. - Three methodological revolutions. - The method of idealization. - Explanations and ap

Discussions about abstraction are so important and so profound that this topic can hardly be neglected. It has inevitably cropped up again in various periods of

Here is presented for the first time a comprehensive review and analysis of the several roles played by idealization procedures in the logic, mathematics and mo