Representation
Representation would seem to closely related to model. Most models are representations. But not all representations are models, at least not if the latter entails a means of formal understanding and testing. Representations of systems can be informal, selective, and incomplete and still be representations.
Yet, it is at the same time possible to conceive of a model that does not claim to represent a system but only be a means of exploring one, as when Poole quotes Meehan claiming a systems model is "an abstract calculus that is totally unrelated to anything in the empirical world" (50). Here Meehan seems to be saying that a systems model can be a mechanism through which to explore mechanisms in the empirical world without claiming to represent them.
Representation is a fascinating aspect of systems theory/ systems work in part because systems work often "plays loose" with representation, at various times (a) not acknowledging that what is being claimed about a system in fact is a claim about a representation of a system, or (b) that models are not representations, or that (c) representation itself can be a system.
Yet, a theory--if it is indeed a "description of real-world phenomena" -- would seem to have to be a representation.
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