This article shows how the MISS account of models—as isolations and surrogate systems—accommodates and elaborates Sugden’s account of models as credible worlds and Hausman’s account of models as explorations. Theoretical models typically isolate by means of idealization, and they are representatives of some target system, which prompts issues of resemblance between the two to arise. Models as representations are constrained both ontologically (by their targets) and pragmatically (by the purposes and audiences of the modeller), and these relations are coordinated by (...) a model commentary. Surrogate models are often about single mechanisms. They are distinguishable from substitute models, which are examined without any concern about their connections with the target. Models as credible worlds are surrogate models that are believed to provide access to their targets on account of their credibility (of which a few senses are distinguished). (shrink)

This article shows how the MISS account of models—as isolations and surrogate systems—accommodates and elaborates Sugden’s account of models as credible worlds and Hausman’s account of models as explorations. Theoretical models typically isolate by means of idealization, and they are representatives of some target system, which prompts issues of resemblance between the two to arise. Models as representations are constrained both ontologically (by their targets) and pragmatically (by the purposes and audiences of the modeller), and these relations are coordinated by (...) a model commentary. Surrogate models are often about single mechanisms. They are distinguishable from substitute models, which are examined without any concern about their connections with the target. Models as credible worlds are surrogate models that are believed to provide access to their targets on account of their credibility (of which a few senses are distinguished). (shrink)

A constantly changing social reality means economic theories, even if correct today, need to be constantly revised, updated, or abandoned. To maintain an up-to-date understanding of its subject matter, economists have to continuously assess their theories even those that appear to be empirically corroborated. Economics could gain from a method that describes and is capable of generating novel explanatory hypotheses. A pessimistic view on the existence of such a method was famously articulated by Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific (...) Discovery. He wrote ‘there is no such a thing as a logical method of having ideas or a logical reconstruction of this process.’ Herbert Simon responded to Popper and argued the opposite, namely, that there is a model of discovery and its name is abduction. Simon acknowledges his debt to Charles Peirce – the first modern logician to explicitly formulate a theory of abduction – and explains that abduction is a model of discovery that works as a problem-solving heuristic encoded.. (shrink)

The literature in economic methodology has witnessed an increase in the number of studies which, drawing upon the postmodern turn in social sciences, pay serious attention to the non-epistemological-discursive elements of economic theorizing. This recent work on the "economic discourse" has thus added a new dimension to economic methodology by analyzing various discursive aspects of the construction of scientific meanings in economics. Taking a similar stance, this paper explores Michel Foucault's archaeological analysis of scientific discourses. It aims to show that (...) his archaeological reading of the history of economic thought provides an articulate non-epistemological framework for the analysis of the discursive elements in the history of economics and contemporary economic theorizing. (shrink)

There are realist philosophers and social scientists who believe in the indispensability of social ontology. However, we argue that certain pragmatist outlines for inquiry open more fruitful roads to empirical research than such ontologizing perspectives. The pragmatist conceptual tools in a Darwinian vein—concepts like action, habit, coping and community—are in a particularly stark contrast with, for instance, the Searlean and Chomskian metaphysics of human being. In particular, we bring Searle's realist philosophy of society and mind under critical survey in this (...) paper and contrast it with a pragmatist, sociologizing approach. Drawing from Dewey, James, and recent antirepresentationalism, we propose for research work a methodological relationalism of its own kind, altogether detached from the ontologies of society and mind. (shrink)

The paper conceptualizes economic models as metaphors. It presents two different approaches to economic modeling. In the first one, economic models are treated as isolations which aim at representing the real world. In the second, they are conceptualized according to various philosophical approaches that are close to fictionalism. The aim of such modeling is to persuade and not to represent. Next, the author tries to escape the dichotomy between models as isolations and models as purely rhetorical devices by referring to (...) N. Cartwright’s understanding of economic models. The issue of their realism is also considered. The final conclusion states that models are very similar to metaphors. (shrink)

This paper supports the literature which argues that derivational robustness can have epistemic import in highly idealized economic models. The defense is based on a particular example from mathematical economic theory, the dynamic Walrasian general equilibrium model. It is argued that derivational robustness first increased and later decreased the credibility of the Walrasian model. The example demonstrates that derivational robustness correctly describes the practices of a particular group of influential economic theorists and provides support for the arguments of philosophers who (...) have offered a general epistemic justification of such practices. (shrink)