ABSTRACT
This chapter applies the methodological concerns of Popper’s critical realism to different aspects of the methodology of model building. It criticizes some of the common excuses given for accepting less than desirable realism in economic models. The chapter briefly discusses various small-m methodological obstacles to obtaining realistic economic models. Approximationism is the most common form of Conventionalism. It seems to appeal to commonsense. It simply says that while we might like our assumptions to be true, that is, realistic, as a practical matter true representative models would be too complex and thus intractable. At best, the published disputes between pluralists and advocates of the rhetoric of economics are mere family disputes. Both reject realism. Both advocate some form of relativism. Reading real-world significance into artifacts of arbitrary mathematical assumptions is not uncommon. Nevertheless, representable realism demands that the parameters of models should represent autonomous real world, phenomena.
