Add to ORKGI distinguish several doctrines that economic methodologists have found attractive, all of which have a positivist flavor. One of these is the doctrine that preference assignments in economics are just shorthand descriptions of agents’ choices. Although most of these doctrines are problematic, the latter doctrine about preference assignments is a respectable one, I argue. It does not entail any of the problematic doctrines, and indeed it is warranted independently of them.This work has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement no 284123.This is the accepted manuscript. It is currently embargoed pending publication