If I were an economist, I wouldn’t be interested (at least not qua economist) in deductive systems that talked about quarks and leptons. I would be interested in deductive systems that talked about prices and demand. The best system for this coarser-grained vocabulary will give us the laws of economics, distinct from the laws of physics.
There’s this difference between economics and physics. The axioms of economics don’t come close to completely explaining prices and demand, and we don’t expect them to, even in principle. It would be a miracle if they did: finding coarse-grained descriptions at different levels of abstraction that are exceptionless would be miraculous.
We want a complete physics; we know we can’t have a complete economics. The expectation that physics can be complete reflects an assumption that we can cut physical reality at its seams, but we have no similar expectation for economics. Physical descriptions are more than mere descriptions because we expect a finite number of them to describe the (physical) universe; we don’t expect axiomatized economics to describe the coarse grain of the economics universe, only what’s really a small part.
Accusing realists about physical laws as conceiving of them as “pushing matter around” is to substitute a metaphorical description of the philosophical landscape for an actual analysis. Here’s an analysis. On a realist view—that is, laws are “rules”—you expect a finite number of axioms to be exhaustive. This is what makes them like laws—their finite number. On the other hand, descriptions are infinite in their variety. What makes the laws of physics “real” is that, if they work as supposed, they describe the structure of matter. That we see matter as having a structure leads us to expect a finite number of principles to describe that structure. We don’t think that way about ordinary descriptions or the “laws” of the “special sciences.” There, we take what we can get, and don’t expect exhaustiveness.
There’s this difference between economics and physics. The axioms of economics don’t come close to completely explaining prices and demand, and we don’t expect them to, even in principle. It would be a miracle if they did: finding coarse-grained descriptions at different levels of abstraction that are exceptionless would be miraculous.
We want a complete physics; we know we can’t have a complete economics. The expectation that physics can be complete reflects an assumption that we can cut physical reality at its seams, but we have no similar expectation for economics. Physical descriptions are more than mere descriptions because we expect a finite number of them to describe the (physical) universe; we don’t expect axiomatized economics to describe the coarse grain of the economics universe, only what’s really a small part.
Accusing realists about physical laws as conceiving of them as “pushing matter around” is to substitute a metaphorical description of the philosophical landscape for an actual analysis. Here’s an analysis. On a realist view—that is, laws are “rules”—you expect a finite number of axioms to be exhaustive. This is what makes them like laws—their finite number. On the other hand, descriptions are infinite in their variety. What makes the laws of physics “real” is that, if they work as supposed, they describe the structure of matter. That we see matter as having a structure leads us to expect a finite number of principles to describe that structure. We don’t think that way about ordinary descriptions or the “laws” of the “special sciences.” There, we take what we can get, and don’t expect exhaustiveness.