Social science fledglings can improve their theorizing by focusing on three questions: Theory of what?, Why should we care?, and What merit in your explanation? This suite of questions takes the spine of theory to be explanation. Explanation has a counterpart in the thing to be explained, the explanandum. The three questions have been deployed in criticizing the tendency in economics to pass off mere model-building as theorizing. I summarize that deployment and then offer the three questions as means to discipline one’s theorizing.
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i'm the leftist liberal you've been warned about - the one who genuinely supports the expansion of the welfare state. i love politics and data and graffiti and street art and am far too lazy to use my shift key. if you need to reach me, you can email to abbyjean at the google email service.
