Economics for Real

10  Pragmatism, perspectival realism, and econometrics¹

Kevin D. Hoover

It does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes.

E.H. Carr

1 The metaphysics of the econometrician

Modern economics is a modeling science. The fact that econometric research of various sorts dominates the journals suggests that it is also an empirical science. Naturally, these facts together raise questions about models and their relationship to the world. In particular, what do economic or econometric models represent about the world? In a recent book, Ronald Giere (2006: 3–4) refers to the ‘hard realism of many philosophers of science’ and ...