A eficácia da construção de modelos em ciência: as Analogias Reais de James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell was one of the first modern physicists to employ straightly and confidently models and analogies in his own practice. Models and analogies should be understood as guides to discover the unified order that exists in nature. In his work, the Scottish physicist used analogies between different fields of physics. By using the methods of analogy and that of building models, he achieved several important results as the unification of electricity and magnetism and the determination of the nature of Saturn’s rings. He used models, as stepping stones to find new theories that, once established, could be further developed mathematically in an abstract manner. This article seeks to explain the epistemological, metaphysical and theological grounds that made it possible for him to achieve his results, as well as to focus on the elements responsible for his work such magnitude in the history of physics and in the history of philosophy of science.