ABSTRACT
The 'theory' project discussed in the previous chapter is unable to explain actual phenomena of the real (open) social world. But do orthodox 'theorists' usually or consistently seek to explain or even address actual phenomena? A belief that the project ought to be explanatory, that it should seek to overcome its explanatory failures, underpins the recent turn to methods of computer simulation and the like. For the goal here, by most accounts, is the generation of models sufficiently complex to accommodate the apparent intricacies of actual social phenomena and their relations. Even so the aim of formulating 'models' that should be confronted with data on actual economic phenomena has never been accepted by all 'theorists', or at least not consistently so. Hahn, for example, despite currently advising others to turn to computer simulations, has previously castigated attempts to confront 'theoretical claims' against empirical data.1 This stance reflects a recognition that the 'theory' postulates in question do not at all express the real mechanisms responsible for generating the outcomes recorded in economic data.2 Yet Hahn insists on persevering with the deductivist 'theory' project, including theory postulates of the sort in question, despite a realisation that the latter are hardly realistic. Thus, on occasions, or in some contexts at least, it would appear that the constant conjunction form and the deductivist mode of reasoning it underpins are held to be justified despite, or irrespective of, the fact that few if any interesting real world event regularities have been recorded.
