Le modèle dans la transmission des savoirs Sondage d’un terrain épistémologique

The notion of the model is notable for its wide diffusion within a huge range of disciplinary and linguistic areas and thus plays a significant role in ­contemporary epistemology. Although it may be understood as an avatar of “structure” to a certain extent, the model cannot be reduced to this single notion, especially since it would seem to link both to a science of ­concepts and to a science of the subject. The case studies brought together here, which deal with several fields of medieval knowledge (music, literature, medicine, physics, mathematics), reveal the multiplicity of ways in which the model operates and highlight the ­concept of “play” as a means by which knowledge ­constructed through models can be opened up to new ideas.