How Narratives Can Deidealize Models

Abstract

Knuuttila and Morgan (2019) challenge the widespread understanding that deidealization is no more than a simple process of relaxing assumptions to build increasingly more realistic models. They submit that, in practice, processes of model deidealization are diverse and complex and thus warrant more explicit scrutiny. Drawing on a case from economics, my analysis extends their proposal by showing how narratives, as additional representational forms, can assume a crucial role in deidealizing mathematical models. I thereby propose to consider that processes of model deidealization are not necessarily exhausted by processes in which one theoretical mathematical model is replaced with another one.