Philosophy of Physics Seminar (Thursday - Week 4, MT24)

Abstract: “I shall try to answer the question how robust abstract economic models explain; my main illustrative example is the Sakoda-Schelling model of (racial) segregation. I shall presuppose that abstract economic models deliver for the real world how-possibly explanations at best. The crucial question is how model results can be transferred to real-world phenomena. I shall propose reframing this transfer problem in the following way. Robust model results inductively support a conjectured, non-obvious logical truth that can be immediately applied both to the model world and to the real world, thereby delivering a how-possibly explanation. I shall develop this thesis in eight steps gradually dismantling its counter-intuitive character. The result will be that one function of robust abstract models is to tease out non-obvious explanatory consequences of theories (evolutionary theory, e.g.) or mechanisms (Sakoda-Schelling dynamics, e.g.) that cannot be directly inferred from them.”