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  1. Model Pluralism.Walter Veit - 2019 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (2):91-114.
    This paper introduces and defends an account of model-based science that I dub model pluralism. I argue that despite a growing awareness in the philosophy of science literature of the multiplicity, diversity, and richness of models and modeling practices, more radical conclusions follow from this recognition than have previously been inferred. Going against the tendency within the literature to generalize from single models, I explicate and defend the following two core theses: any successful analysis of models must target sets of (...)
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  • Modeling Morality.Walter Veit - 2019 - In Matthieu Fontaine, Cristina Barés-Gómez, Francisco Salguero-Lamillar, Lorenzo Magnani & Ángel Nepomuceno-Fernández, Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology: Inferential Models for Logic, Language, Cognition and Computation. Springer Verlag. pp. 83–102.
    Unlike any other field, the science of morality has drawn attention from an extraordinarily diverse set of disciplines. An interdisciplinary research program has formed in which economists, biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and even philosophers have been eager to provide answers to puzzling questions raised by the existence of human morality. Models and simulations, for a variety of reasons, have played various important roles in this endeavor. Their use, however, has sometimes been deemed as useless, trivial and inadequate. The role of models (...)
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  • How could models possibly provide how-possibly explanations?Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 73:1-12.
    One puzzle concerning highly idealized models is whether they explain. Some suggest they provide so-called ‘how-possibly explanations’. However, this raises an important question about the nature of how-possibly explanations, namely what distinguishes them from ‘normal’, or how-actually, explanations? I provide an account of how-possibly explanations that clarifies their nature in the context of solving the puzzle of model-based explanation. I argue that the modal notions of actuality and possibility provide the relevant dividing lines between how-possibly and how-actually explanations. Whereas how-possibly (...)
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  • Learning from Minimal Economic Models.Till Grüne-Yanoff - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (1):81-99.
    It is argued that one can learn from minimal economic models. Minimal models are models that are not similar to the real world, do not resemble some of its features, and do not adhere to accepted regularities. One learns from a model if constructing and analysing the model affects one’s confidence in hypotheses about the world. Economic models, I argue, are often assessed for their credibility. If a model is judged credible, it is considered to be a relevant possibility. Considering (...)
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  • In Defence of Revealed Preference Theory.Johanna Thoma - 2021 - Economics and Philosophy 37 (2):163-187.
    This paper defends revealed preference theory against a pervasive line of criticism, according to which revealed preference methodology relies on appealing to some mental states, in particular an agent’s beliefs, rendering the project incoherent or unmotivated. I argue that all that is established by these arguments is that revealed preference theorists must accept a limited mentalism in their account of the options an agent should be modelled as choosing between. This is consistent both with an essentially behavioural interpretation of preference (...)
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  • Understanding with theoretical models.Petri Ylikoski & N. Emrah Aydinonat - 2014 - Journal of Economic Methodology 21 (1):19-36.
    This paper discusses the epistemic import of highly abstract and simplified theoretical models using Thomas Schelling’s checkerboard model as an example. We argue that the epistemic contribution of theoretical models can be better understood in the context of a cluster of models relevant to the explanatory task at hand. The central claim of the paper is that theoretical models make better sense in the context of a menu of possible explanations. In order to justify this claim, we introduce a distinction (...)
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  • If No Capacities Then No Credible Worlds. But Can Models Reveal Capacities?Nancy Cartwright - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (1):45-58.
    This paper argues that even when simple analogue models picture parallel worlds, they generally still serve as isolating tools. But there are serious obstacles that often stop them isolating in just the right way. These are obstacles that face any model that functions as a thought-experiment but they are especially pressing for economic models because of the paucity of economic principles. Because of the paucity of basic principles, economic models are rich in structural assumptions. Without these no interesting conclusions can (...)
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  • Buyer beware: robustness analyses in economics and biology.Jay Odenbaugh & Anna Alexandrova - 2011 - Biology and Philosophy 26 (5):757-771.
    Theoretical biology and economics are remarkably similar in their reliance on mathematical models, which attempt to represent real world systems using many idealized assumptions. They are also similar in placing a great emphasis on derivational robustness of modeling results. Recently philosophers of biology and economics have argued that robustness analysis can be a method for confirmation of claims about causal mechanisms, despite the significant reliance of these models on patently false assumptions. We argue that the power of robustness analysis has (...)
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  • Argumentative landscapes: the function of models in social epistemology.N. Emrah Aydinonat, Samuli Reijula & Petri Ylikoski - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):369-395.
    We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in social epistemology and highlight their limitations. We also claim that (...)
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  • Hypothetical Pattern Idealization and Explanatory Models.Yasha Rohwer & Collin Rice - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (3):334-355.
    Highly idealized models, such as the Hawk-Dove game, are pervasive in biological theorizing. We argue that the process and motivation that leads to the introduction of various idealizations into these models is not adequately captured by Michael Weisberg’s taxonomy of three kinds of idealization. Consequently, a fourth kind of idealization is required, which we call hypothetical pattern idealization. This kind of idealization is used to construct models that aim to be explanatory but do not aim to be explanations.
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  • Model Diversity and the Embarrassment of Riches.Walter Veit - unknown
    In a recent special issue dedicated to Dani Rodrik’s (2015) influential monograph Economics Rules, Grüne-Yanoff and Marchionni (2018) raise a potentially damning problem for Rodrik’s suggestion that progress in economics should be understood and measured laterally, by a continuous expansion of new models. They argue that this could lead to an “embarrassment of riches”, i.e. the rapid expansion of our model library to such an extent that we become unable to choose between the available models, and thus needs to be (...)
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  • Isolating Representations Versus Credible Constructions? Economic Modelling in Theory and Practice.Tarja Knuuttila - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (1):59-80.
    This paper examines two recent approaches to the nature and functioning of economic models: models as isolating representations and models as credible constructions. The isolationist view conceives of economic models as surrogate systems that isolate some of the causal mechanisms or tendencies of their respective target systems, while the constructionist approach treats them rather like pure constructions or fictional entities that nevertheless license different kinds of inferences. I will argue that whereas the isolationist view is still tied to the representationalist (...)
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  • Incredible Worlds, Credible Results.Jaakko Kuorikoski & Aki Lehtinen - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (1):119-131.
    Robert Sugden argues that robustness analysis cannot play an epistemic role in grounding model-world relationships because the procedure is only a matter of comparing models with each other. We posit that this argument is based on a view of models as being surrogate systems in too literal a sense. In contrast, the epistemic importance of robustness analysis is easy to explicate if modelling is viewed as extended cognition, as inference from assumptions to conclusions. Robustness analysis is about assessing the reliability (...)
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  • Centrality and marginalisation.Brian Weatherson - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 171 (3):517-533.
    A contribution to a symposium on Herman Cappelen's Philosophy without Intuitions.
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  • Credibility, Idealisation, and Model Building: An Inferential Approach.Xavier Donato Rodríguez & Jesús Zamora Bonilla - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (1):101-118.
    In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Philosophy of economics.Daniel M. Hausman - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    This is a comprehensive anthology of works concerning the nature of economics as a science, including classic texts and essays exploring specific branches and schools of economics. Apart from the classics, most of the selections in the third edition are new, as are the introduction and bibliography. No other anthology spans the whole field and offers a comprehensive introduction to questions about economic methodology.
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  • Modeling model selection in model pluralism.Till Grüne-Yanoff & Caterina Marchionni - 2018 - Journal of Economic Methodology 25 (3):265-275.
    ABSTRACTIn his recent book, Rodrik [. Economics rules. Why economics works, when it fails, and how to tell the difference. Oxford University Press] proposes an account of model pluralism according to which multiple models of the same target are acceptable as long as one model is more useful for one purpose and another is more useful for another purpose. How, then, is the right model for the purpose selected? Rodrik roughly outlines a selection procedure, which we formalize to enhance understanding (...)
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  • Calculus and counterpossibles in science.Brian McLoone - 2020 - Synthese 198 (12):12153-12174.
    A mathematical model in science can be formulated as a counterfactual conditional, with the model’s assumptions in the antecedent and its predictions in the consequent. Interestingly, some of these models appear to have assumptions that are metaphysically impossible. Consider models in ecology that use differential equations to track the dynamics of some population of organisms. For the math to work, the model must assume that population size is a continuous quantity, despite that many organisms are necessarily discrete. This means our (...)
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  • Learning through the Scientific Imagination.Fiora Salis - 2020 - Argumenta 6 (1):65-80.
    Theoretical models are widely held as sources of knowledge of reality. Imagination is vital to their development and to the generation of plausible hypotheses about reality. But how can imagination, which is typically held to be completely free, effectively instruct us about reality? In this paper I argue that the key to answering this question is in constrained uses of imagination. More specifically, I identify make-believe as the right notion of imagination at work in modelling. I propose the first overarching (...)
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  • (1 other version)Capturing the scientific imagination.Fiora Salis & Roman Frigg - 2019 - In Arnon Levy & Peter Godfrey-Smith, The Scientific Imagination. New York, US: Oup Usa.
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  • The truth of false idealizations in modeling.Uskali Mäki - 2011 - In Paul Humphreys & Cyrille Imbert, Models, Simulations, and Representations. New York: Routledge.
    Modeling involves the use of false idealizations, yet there is typically a belief or hope that modeling somehow manages to deliver true information about the world. The paper discusses one possible way of reconciling truth and falsehood in modeling. The key trick is to relocate truth claims by reinterpreting an apparently false idealizing assumption in order to make clear what possibly true assertion is intended when using it. These include interpretations in terms of negligibility, applicability, tractability, early-step, and more. Elaborations (...)
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  • Inconsistent idealizations and inferentialism about scientific representation.Peter Tan - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 89 (C):11-18.
    Inferentialists about scientific representation hold that an apparatus’s representing a target system consists in the apparatus allowing “surrogative inferences” about the target. I argue that a serious problem for inferentialism arises from the fact that many scientific theories and models contain internal inconsistencies. Inferentialism, left unamended, implies that inconsistent scientific models have unlimited representational power, since an inconsistency permits any conclusion to be inferred. I consider a number of ways that inferentialists can respond to this challenge before suggesting my own (...)
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  • Two epistemological challenges regarding hypothetical modeling.Peter Tan - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6).
    Sometimes, scientific models are either intended to or plausibly interpreted as representing nonactual but possible targets. Call this “hypothetical modeling”. This paper raises two epistemological challenges concerning hypothetical modeling. To begin with, I observe that given common philosophical assumptions about the scope of objective possibility, hypothetical models are fallible with respect to what is objectively possible. There is thus a need to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate hypothetical modeling. The first epistemological challenge is that no account of the epistemology of (...)
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  • What’s Wrong with Social Simulations?Eckhart Arnold - 2014 - The Monist 97 (3):359-377.
    This paper tries to answer the question why the epistemic value of so many social simulations is questionable. I consider the epistemic value of a social simulation as questionable if it contributes neither directly nor indirectly to the understanding of empirical reality. To examine this question, two classical social simulations are analyzed with respect to their possible epistemic justification: Schelling’s neighborhood segregation model and Axelrod’s reiterated Prisoner’s Dilemma simulations of the evolution of cooperation. It is argued that Schelling’s simulation is (...)
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  • Are climate models credible worlds? Prospects and limitations of possibilistic climate prediction.Gregor Betz - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2):191-215.
    Climate models don’t give us probabilistic forecasts. To interpret their results, alternatively, as serious possibilities seems problematic inasmuch as climate models rely on contrary-to-fact assumptions: why should we consider their implications as possible if their assumptions are known to be false? The paper explores a way to address this possibilistic challenge. It introduces the concepts of a perfect and of an imperfect credible world, and discusses whether climate models can be interpreted as imperfect credible worlds. That would allow one to (...)
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  • Explanation, understanding, and unrealistic models.Frank Hindriks - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (3):523-531.
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  • Non-causal understanding with economic models: the case of general equilibrium.Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2017 - Journal of Economic Methodology 24 (3):297-317.
    How can we use models to understand real phenomena if models misrepresent the very phenomena we seek to understand? Some accounts suggest that models may afford understanding by providing causal knowledge about phenomena via how-possibly explanations. However, general equilibrium models, for example, pose a challenge to this solution since their contribution appears to be purely mathematical results. Despite this, practitioners widely acknowledge that it improves our understanding of the world. I argue that the Arrow–Debreu model provides a mathematical how-possibly explanation (...)
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  • The Eclipse of Value-Free Economics. The concept of multiple self versus homo economicus.Aleksander Ostapiuk - 2020 - Wrocław, Polska: Publishing House of Wroclaw University of Economics and Business.
    The books’ goal is to answer the question: Do the weaknesses of value-free economics imply the need for a paradigm shift? The author synthesizes criticisms from different perspectives (descriptive and methodological). Special attention is paid to choices over time, because in this area value-free economics has the most problems. In that context, the enriched concept of multiple self is proposed and investigated. However, it is not enough to present the criticisms towards value-free economics. For scientists, a bad paradigm is better (...)
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  • How fictional accounts can explain.Robert Sugden - 2013 - Journal of Economic Methodology 20 (3):237 - 243.
    In this note, I comment on Julian Reiss's paper ?The explanation paradox?. I argue in support of two of the propositions that make up that paradox (that economic models are false, and that they are explanatory) but challenge the third proposition, that only true accounts can explain. I defend the ?credible worlds? account of models as fictions that are explanatory by virtue of similarity relations with real-world phenomena. I argue that Reiss's objections to the role of subjective similarity judgements in (...)
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  • Models as products of interdisciplinary exchange: Evidence from evolutionary game theory.Till Grüne-Yanoff - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (2):386-397.
    The development of evolutionary game theory is closely linked with two interdisciplinary exchanges: the import of game theory into biology, and the import of biologists’ version of game theory into economics. This paper traces the history of these two import episodes. In each case the investigation covers what exactly was imported, what the motives for the import were, how the imported elements were put to use, and how they related to existing practices in the respective disciplines. Two conclusions emerged from (...)
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  • Explanations in search of observations.Robert Sugden - 2011 - Biology and Philosophy 26 (5):717-736.
    The paper explores how, in economics and biology, theoretical models are used as explanatory devices. It focuses on a modelling strategy by which, instead of starting with an unexplained regularity in the world, the modeller begins by creating a credible model world. The model world exhibits a regularity, induced by a mechanism in that world. The modeller concludes that there may be a part of the real world in which a similar regularity occurs and that, were that the case, the (...)
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  • Scientific counterfactuals as make-believe.Noelia Iranzo-Ribera - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6).
    Counterfactuals abound in science, especially when reasoning about and with models. This often requires entertaining counterfactual conditionals with nomologically or metaphysically impossible antecedents, namely, counternomics or counterpossibles. In this paper I defend the make-believe view of scientific counterfactuals, a naturalised fiction-based account of counterfactuals in science which provides a means to evaluate their meanings independently of the possibility of the states of affairs their antecedents describe, and under which they have non-trivial truth-values. Fiction is here understood as imagination (in contrast (...)
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  • Derivational robustness, credible substitute systems and mathematical economic models: the case of stability analysis in Walrasian general equilibrium theory.D. Wade Hands - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (1):31-53.
    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 (...)
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  • The Diversity of Models as a Means to Better Explanations in Economics.Emrah Aydinonat - 2018 - Journal of Economic Methodology 25 (3):237-251.
    In Economics Rules, Dani Rodrik (2015) argues that what makes economics powerful despite the limitations of each and every model is its diversity of models. Rodrik suggests that the diversity of models in economics improves its explanatory capacities, but he does not fully explain how. I offer a clearer picture of how models relate to explanations of particular economic facts or events, and suggest that the diversity of models is a means to better economic explanations.
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  • No Learning from Minimal Models.Roberto Fumagalli - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):798-809.
    This article examines the issue of whether consideration of so-called minimal models can prompt learning about real-world targets. Using a widely cited example as a test case, it argues against the increasingly popular view that consideration of minimal models can prompt learning about such targets. The article criticizes influential defenses of this view for failing to explicate by virtue of what properties or features minimal models supposedly prompt learning. It then argues that consideration of minimal models cannot prompt learning about (...)
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  • Genuineness resolved: a reply to Reiss' purported paradox.Till Grüne-Yanoff - 2013 - Journal of Economic Methodology 20 (3):255 - 261.
    This response to Reiss ?explanatory paradox? argues that some economic models might be true, and that many economic models are not intended for providing how-actually explanations, but rather how-possibly explanations. Therefore, two assumptions of Reiss? paradox are not true, and the paradox disappears.
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  • Understanding does not depend on (causal) explanation.Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2):18.
    One can find in the literature two sets of views concerning the relationship between understanding and explanation: that one understands only if 1) one has knowledge of causes and 2) that knowledge is provided by an explanation. Taken together, these tenets characterize what I call the narrow knowledge account of understanding. While the first tenet has recently come under severe attack, the second has been more resistant to change. I argue that we have good reasons to reject it on the (...)
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  • Learning from Non-Causal Models.Francesco Nappo - 2020 - Erkenntnis 87 (5):2419-2439.
    This paper defends the thesis of learning from non-causal models: viz. that the study of some model can prompt justified changes in one’s confidence in empirical hypotheses about a real-world target in the absence of any known or predicted similarity between model and target with regards to their causal features. Recognizing that we can learn from non-causal models matters not only to our understanding of past scientific achievements, but also to contemporary debates in the philosophy of science. At one end (...)
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  • Modelling and the fall and rise of the handicap principle.Jonathan Grose - 2011 - Biology and Philosophy 26 (5):677-696.
    The story of the fall and rise of Zahavi’s handicap principle is one of a battle between models. Early attempts at formal modeling produced negative results and, unsurprisingly, scepticism about the principle. A major change came in 1990 with Grafen’s production of coherent models of a handicap mechanism of honest signalling. This paper’s first claim is that acceptance of the principle, and its dissemination into other disciplines, has been driven principally by that, and subsequent modeling, rather than by empirical results. (...)
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  • Toy models, dispositions, and the power to explain.Philippe Verreault-Julien - 2023 - Synthese 201 (5):1-17.
    Two recent contributions have discussed, and disagreed, over whether so-called toy models that attempt to represent dispositions have the power to explain. In this paper, I argue that neither of these positions is completely correct. Toy models may accurately represent, satisfy the veridicality condition, yet fail to provide how-actually explanations. This is because some dispositions remain unmanifested. Instead, the models provide how-possibly explanations; they _possibly_ explain.
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  • Inseparable Bedfellows: Imagination and Mathematics in Economic Modeling.Fiora Salis & Mary Leng - 2023 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 53 (4):255-280.
    In this paper we explore the hypothesis that constrained uses of imagination are crucial to economic modeling. We propose a theoretical framework to develop this thesis through a number of specific hypotheses that we test and refine through six new, representative case studies. Our ultimate goal is to develop a philosophical account that is practice oriented and informed by empirical evidence. To do this, we deploy an abductive reasoning strategy. We start from a robust set of hypotheses and leave space (...)
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  • On the Hidden Thought Experiments of Economic Theory.Johanna Thoma - 2016 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (2):129-146.
    Most papers in theoretical economics contain thought experiments. They take the form of more informal bits of reasoning that precede the presentation of the formal, mathematical models these papers are known for. These thought experiments differ from the formal models in various ways. In particular, they do not invoke the same idealized assumptions about the rationality, knowledge, and preferences of agents. The presence of thought experiments in papers that present formal models, and the fact that they differ from the formal (...)
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  • Not-So-Minimal Models.Lorenzo Casini - 2014 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (5):646-672.
    What can we learn from “minimal” economic models? I argue that learning from such models is not limited to conceptual explorations—which show how something could be the case—but may extend to explanations of real economic phenomena—which show how something is the case. A model may be minimal qua certain world-linking properties, and yet “not-so-minimal” qua learning, provided it is externally valid. This, in turn, depends on using the right principles for model building and not necessarily “isolating” principles. My argument is (...)
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  • Model-based theorising in cognitive neuroscience.Elizabeth Irvine - unknown
    Weisberg (2006) and Godfrey-Smith (2006, 2009) distinguish between two forms of theorising: data-driven ‘abstract direct representation’ and modeling. The key difference is that when using a data-driven approach, theories are intended to represent specific phenomena, so directly represent them, while models may not be intended to represent anything, so represent targets indirectly, if at all. The aim here is to compare and analyse these practices, in order to outline an account of model-based theorising that involves direct representational relationships. This is (...)
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  • Capturing the representational and the experimental in the modelling of artificial societies.David Anzola - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-29.
    Even though the philosophy of simulation is intended as a comprehensive reflection about the practice of computer simulation in contemporary science, its output has been disproportionately shaped by research on equation-based simulation in the physical and climate sciences. Hence, the particularities of alternative practices of computer simulation in other scientific domains are not sufficiently accounted for in the current philosophy of simulation literature. This article centres on agent-based social simulation, a relatively established type of simulation in the social sciences, to (...)
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  • ‘Situational Analysis’ and Economics: an attempt at clarification.Alfonso Palacio-Vera - 2019 - Economics and Philosophy 35 (3):479-498.
    Popper’s ‘Situational Analysis’ (SA) constitutes his methodological proposal for the social sciences. We claim that the two hallmarks of SA are: (i) that scientists assume they possess a ‘wider’ view of the problem-situation than actors do, and (ii) use the model as an ideal ‘benchmark’ scenario to identify thedeviationof actors’ actual behaviour from the former. We argue that SA is not a generalization of the neoclassical theory of individual behaviour but captures instead the methodology adopted by modern behavioural economists. Last, (...)
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  • Neural Findings and Economic Models: Why Brains Have Limited Relevance for Economics.Roberto Fumagalli - 2014 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (5):606-629.
    Proponents of neuroeconomics often argue that better knowledge of the human neural architecture enables economists to improve standard models of choice. In their view, these improvements provide compelling reasons to use neural findings in constructing and evaluating economic models. In a recent article, I criticized this view by pointing to the trade-offs between the modeling desiderata valued by neuroeconomists and other economists, respectively. The present article complements my earlier critique by focusing on three modeling desiderata that figure prominently in economic (...)
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  • The Need for Governmental Inefficiency in Plato’s Republic.Gil Hersch - 2021 - Journal of History of Economic Thought 43 (1):103 - 117.
    In book II of Plato’s Republic, Socrates discusses the cities of necessity and luxury (372d-373a). Discussions of these cities have often focused on citizens desiring more than they need, which creates a demand for luxury. Yet the second part of the equation, which is not usually recognized, is that there must be sufficient supply to meet this demand. The focus of this article is on the importance of supply in the discussion of the first two cities in book II of (...)
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  • Models and Credibility.Hsiang-Ke Chao - 2014 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (5):588-605.
    This article argues that the credibility of both theoretical and empirical models in economics is best understood through their connection with the empirical aspects of the real world. The discussion herein demonstrates that the similarity between the model and the real world is not enough to justify a theoretical model’s explanatory power. The best way to secure the model’s credibility is to prove the existence of representation theorems.
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  • Tres miradas realistas para acceder al mundo social.Agustina Borella - 2012 - Revista de Instituciones, Ideas y Mercados 56:181-209.
    Even though Popper, Lawson and Mäki are realists, the three of them understand by realism something different and support different positions on the use of models in economics. In this article we will compare the three proposals on their conceptions of reality, the function and the nature of economic models and their use to study the social world.
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