Just seems to me the one area of the discipline where, at its best, it is counterproductive
Honestly what is the point of formal theory?
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?Politics is well known for his adherence to logic
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?Politics is well known for his adherence to logic
Players need not be rationally self-interested nor entirely capable of making the right decisions for formal theory to be used.
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?
Politics is well known for his adherence to logicPlayers need not be rationally self-interested nor entirely capable of making the right decisions for formal theory to be used.
Discipline is internally coherent and useless/counterproductive… Whatever it is, it is not the study of politics
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?
Politics is well known for his adherence to logic
Players need not be rationally self-interested nor entirely capable of making the right decisions for formal theory to be used.Discipline is internally coherent and useless/counterproductive… Whatever it is, it is not the study of politics
It is a language that provides for theoretical logical consistency and does not always presuppose logical consistency in the behavior of political actors. If it is used to theoretically examine political interactions, it is the study of politics. And if you take issue with the underlying assumptions of a model or class of models, then you should state so clearly. Not all models, just like not all theories communicated verbally, are built upon the same assumptions.
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There is a real question about what it means to know anything. Formal theory shows with logic how ideas are related. Suppose you kind of sort of already knew these relationships? You are probably fooling yourself (try to guess the results sometimes and see how often your answer is wrong and incomplete) and relying on intuition is not a reliable method, especially as things get more complicated.
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When I read claims like the OP's, I'm reminded of what the mathematician/economist Frank Ramsay said to Wittgenstein: "If you can't say it, you can't say it, but you can't whistle it, either."
The idea that "informal" theories are superior to formal theories because they are more realistic or less abstract is nonsense. Since language is an abstraction, even informal theories are abstract. As has been pointed out, the real difference is how easy it is to check the theory for consistency, etc.
As Feynman said, the first principle of science is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Ordinary language makes it hard to makes it harder to check to see that you are complying with this principle.
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When I read claims like the OP's, I'm reminded of what the mathematician/economist Frank Ramsay said to Wittgenstein: "If you can't say it, you can't say it, but you can't whistle it, either."
The idea that "informal" theories are superior to formal theories because they are more realistic or less abstract is nonsense. Since language is an abstraction, even informal theories are abstract. As has been pointed out, the real difference is how easy it is to check the theory for consistency, etc.
As Feynman said, the first principle of science is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Ordinary language makes it hard to makes it harder to check to see that you are complying with this principle.This is why people listen to economists and no gives a flying f what political scientists say
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The endeavor is internally consistent. It does not make it useful or productive. Is there anything that we only know because of formal theory?
Is there anything that we only know because of theory?Mays theorem
There isn’t any in polisci. Hey, let’s make DAGs useless by adding math! And thus was born an enduring cancer of asshats. This realization begets an inferiority complex, which is why so many behave the way they do.
This is incoherent.DAGS are mathetical objects. And they aren't useful without it.
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I prefer hand-wave theory. My gut says x should be related to y, I look for stars, and then I say some things about this relationship with many intervening steps and assumptions missing. Then I act like I thought those things all along and that the stars are evidence of the things I pretend I thought.
Formal theory is bad because it uses math and logic, and this makes it hard to just say things. Why can't they use words like normal people?this is a fair criticism of a lot of work. but its also a fair criticism of a lot of formal theory as actually practiced in our discipline. so many formal theory papers ive seen start with a conclusion - like an observed empirical relationship - then backwards reason from there into a set of handpicked, completed unreasonable assumptions about actors' utility functions and other features of the game in order to guarantee their model solves to their preordained conclusions. the reasoning in most formal models ends up being just as posthoc as in informal theory.
then when people point out that the assumptions in the model are absurd, the formal theorist gets all huffy and defensive and superior and says well it's just a model, all theories have assumptions. but thats an empty defense and an effort to hide faulty posthoc reasoning beyond a veneer of complexity and math, using the impenetrability of your math to most readers as a way of cosplaying at scientific sophistication while still engaging in the same flawed approach as everyone else.
it is pure whataboutism to defend formal theory by saying that many people who dont use it do bad research. sure. most research is bad. but the value add of a formal mode is often completely trivial.