Formal models of scientific inquiry, aimed at capturing socio-epistemic aspects underlying the process of scientific research, have become an important method in formal social epistemology and philosophy of science. In this introduction to the special issue we provide a historical overview of the development of formal models of this kind and analyze their methodological contributions to discussions in philosophy of science. In particular, we show that their significance consists in different forms of ‘methodological iteration’ (Elliott 2012 ) whereby the models initiate new lines of inquiry, isolate and clarify problems with existing knowledge claims, and stimulate further research.

中文翻译：

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社会背景下科学探究的正式模型：导论

科学探究的正式模型旨在捕捉科学研究过程背后的社会认识论方面，已成为正式社会认识论和科学哲学的重要方法。在本期特刊的介绍中，我们提供了此类形式模型发展的历史概述，并分析了它们对科学哲学讨论的方法论贡献。特别是，我们表明它们的重要性在于不同形式的“方法论迭代”（Elliott 2012），由此模型启动了新的探究路线，隔离和澄清了现有知识主张的问题，并激发了进一步的研究。