How fictional accounts can explain
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 explanation illegitimately presuppose the existence of rational criteria by which science can certify the objective validity of its explanation.
Year of publication: |
2013
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Authors: | Sugden, Robert |
Published in: |
Journal of Economic Methodology. - Taylor & Francis Journals, ISSN 1350-178X. - Vol. 20.2013, 3, p. 237-243
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Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis Journals |
Saved in:
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