This article, while criticizing common views on the nature of abstract scientific models, shows that these approaches fail to explain the role of intentionality in determining the nature of the models. Instead, the article proposes that scientific models be considered as abstract artifacts whose nature is directly dependent on the design intent, scientific goals, and the specific institutional contexts in which they are situated. This approach specifically emphasizes the importance of intentionality in the formation of scientific models and believes that these models are designed to achieve specific scientific and research purposes. This approach has important metaphysical implications, because by using the philosophy of artifacts, it emphasizes the dependence of the existence of models on the collective intention of scientists and the role of scientific institutions in their formation and consolidation. Finally, through an answer to the ontological problem of models, the article provides the basis for proposing a kind of institutional-functional realism that assesses the reality of models within the framework of their scientific and social functions.
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