Three kinds of ‘as-if’ claims

Aki Lehtinen

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2013, vol. 20, issue 2, 184-205

Abstract: As-if locutions are used (a) in order to indicate that an inaccurate or unrealistic assumption is being made because some inaccuracy or unrealisticness is negligible. This kind of claim has two sub-cases. (a 1 ) The as-if locution is used to indicate that the as-if claim in itself is inaccurate and that its inaccuracy does not matter for the purposes of the investigation. (a 2 ) It is used to indicate that claims are made without regard to the causal factors that are assumed to exist but are deemed to be unimportant. As-if locutions may also (b) formulate an accurate behavioural assumption by ascribing intentions or cognitions to an entity in an unrealistic manner or (c) indicate that the modeller is not committed to any particular mental assumptions. The various kinds of claims may be recognised by identifying their underlying ‘attributions’. (a 2 ), (b) and (c) may be used in formulating an accurate claim.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2013.801560 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:20:y:2013:i:2:p:184-205

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJEC20

DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.801560

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Methodology is currently edited by John Davis and D Wade Hands

More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().