Formal Modeling in Political Science: Epistemology and Method(s) Mini-Conference: Epistemological Place of Formal Models

Session Submission Type: Virtual Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Formal Modeling in Political Science: Epistemology and Method(s) Virtual Mini-Conference

Session Description

There is ambiguity on the role/place of formal modeling in the use of the scientific method and in the general practice of political science. Lack of clarity on these issues has undermined the expansion of formal modeling in the discipline. If modeling is useful or even necessary and is to be preserved as a part of the general epistemological schema, a conversation towards shared understanding needs to take place.
How important is it to maintain mathematical logicality between premises and conjectures in a theory?
Do we start with evidence when modeling, even if this evidence is in a form of a single datum? Are we always both inductive and deductive?
Are conjectures about the unobservable, and more generally, claims that are non-falsifiable in a strict sense a part of the scientific inquiry?

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Chair

• James E. Alt Harvard University

Presenters

• Gary W. Cox Stanford University

• Carol A. Mershon University of Virginia

• James D. Morrow University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Kenneth A. Shepsle Harvard University

• Robert H. Bates Harvard University

• Macartan Humphreys Columbia University