Epistemic Cultures in the Social Sciences: The Modeling Dilemma - Dissolved

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper lies in the solution of a specific problem area, referred to as modeling dilemma. In doing so, two major and, hopefully, innovative claims can be made: First, the social sciences can be characterized by at least two pragmatically highly differentiated modeling approaches to the socio-economic ensembles which, in different degrees, offer complementary classes of information and which, moreover, increase the understanding of the complexities of these socio-economic universes. Second, these two major modeling approaches have become, by now, part and parcel of separate epistemic cultures which will, in a process of co-evolution, form major basins of attraction for future practices within the social sciences.;