Racism is a framework, not a theory — Andrew Gelman

I am posting this for its relevance to philosophy of logic and philosophy of science rather than specifics. It draws a useful distinction between frameworks that generate theories and which are themselves not testable (hence falsifiable) and the theories a framework is used to generate.

This is obviously relevant to philosophy of science, but why philosophy of logic? In his later work, Ludwig Wittgenstein sought to show that the overarching frameworks of a culture as a way of life are deeply embedded in the structure and function of ordinary language.

Such frameworks are "world pictures (Weltbilden) that function as a world view. Although many of the propositions they generate appear to be descriptive, many are normative in operation. For example, the fundamentals of a world views are criteria for valuation and judgment, hence, they are stipulations that cannot be falsified from within that world view. For example, in doing science methodological naturalism is fundamental.

As a result many make the illogical jump from a methodological assumption to a metaphysical assertion (materialism) in neoclassical economics methodological individualism, microfoundations, rational maximization, market forces and equilibrium are key fundamentals that are assumed as criteria. This is a reason that neoclassical economists reject "heterodox economics" out of hand.

World views and ideologies are similar and need to be distinguished. A world view is a way of seeing the world that is embedded in ordinary language based on interpretation of context. They are subconscious and very difficult to articulate since they are the basis for using a language to communicate. This applies even to formalizations to the degree that assumptions are stipulated that link that symbols to life. (Pure math says nothing about the world. It is about how the rules for sign-use work in a particular syntactical system.)

Conversely, ideology is articulated at least in outline and people within a single world view can recognized differences of expression based on competing ideologies. Politics functions in this way, for instance. American liberals and conservatives degree but they function within the same framework.

So the application of the point that statistics professor Andrew Gelman is making goes far beyond the context of racism.

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Racism is a framework, not a theory
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

Andrew Gelman — Why they aren’t behavioral economists: Three sociologists give their take on “mental accounting”

The other thing—and this is important—is that the perspectives coming from these three academic disciplines are not competing; they’re complementary. It’s important that money in different bank accounts is liquid—or, to be more precise, it can be liquid for those people who choose to let it be so. It’s important that people often seem to behave as if there are walls between the accounts, restricting their transactions and “freezing” the money, as it were. And it’s important to understand the social context of these behaviors.

Analogously, in section 5.2 of our paper on rational-choice models of voting, Edlin, Kaplan, and I discuss how the rational model is complementary with a psychological understanding of voters. It’s my impression that Bandelj, Wherry, and Zelizer are in agreement with me on this general point, that patterns of human behavior can be usefully understood in different theoretical frameworks. There’s no “right” or “wrong” framework (although one can come to correct or incorrect conclusions within any framework), rather, each framework gives us a way of thinking about the behavior, and entry points into studying it further.

I talk more about frameworks, and how they differ from theories, here.*

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Why they aren’t behavioral economists: Three sociologists give their take on “mental accounting”
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

* Philosopher of science Karl Popper and others have criticized such theories as being nonscientific because they are non-refutable, but I prefer to think of them as frameworks for doing science. As such, Freudianism or Marxism or rational choice or racism are not theories that make falsifiable predictions but rather approaches to scientific inquiry. Taking some poetic license, one might make an analogy where these frameworks are operating systems, while scientific theories are programs. That’s why I wrote that I can’t say that Wade is wrong, just that I don’t find his stories convincing.…

I respect the effort to push such theories as far as they can go, but I find them generally less convincing as they move farther from their home base. Similarly with economists’ models: they can make a lot of sense for prices in a fluid market, they can work OK to model negotiation, they seem like a joke when they start trying to model addiction, suicide, etc.

All-encompassing frameworks are different from scientific theories. Both are valuable — frameworks motivate theories and help us interpret scientific results — but I also think it’s important to be clear on the distinction.

Peter Dorman — Economics: Part of the Rot, Part of the Treatment, or Some of Each?

Peter Dorman puts his finger on what wrong with economists. Econ 101 aka "economism" (James Kwak). As Paul Krugman has said on multiple occasions the framework of conventional economists (neoclassical) is rational optimization and equilibrium.

Peter Dorman submits that this framework guiding conventional economists is not empirically based and is simply assumed as the way that market economies actually work or should work if markets are left to themselves.

These fundamental assumptions that distinguish conventional (neoclassical) economics from so-called heterodox approaches are never questioned even when facts run counter to it.

Econospeak
Economics: Part of the Rot, Part of the Treatment, or Some of Each?
Peter Dorman | Professor of Political Economy, The Evergreen State College

Jason Smith — Chris Dillow, information equilibrium is the framework you're looking for

I think Chris Dillow makes a fine point at the end of his review of The Econocracy about the role of the media with regard to how macroeconomics is disseminated and perceived. I just wanted to add a bit to something he said earlier in his post regarding teaching economics:

For example, some important basic facts in macroeconomics are that: there’s no such thing as a “representative firm” (see this great paper (pdf) by Nick Bloom and colleagues); that GDP growth in developed nations is often stable but interrupted by occasional crises; and that recessions are unpredictable. The sort of theory that can account for these facts is very tricky. A shift away from equilibrium theories towards complexity, evolutionary models and agent-based modelling would require massive changes for which students and perhaps academics are ill-prepared.

I'd like to proffer the information equilibrium/statistical equilibrium framework as a theory that can account for these facts without being "tricky"....

Awhile ago, I put together an outline of an "Economics 101" course that could be taught using the information transfer framework. You might think the math is tricky, but overall it can be understood in terms of the regular supply and demand diagrams with a couple changes: there's another "solution" where supply and demand are tightly linked and move together, non-ideal information transfer turns the supply and demand curves into bounds, and to understand macro you might have to look at ensembles of diagrams (a picture from this link is at the top of this post).

Since this isn't throwing out all of ordinary economics and has a simple diagrammatic representation, it might stand a chance. And it keeps all the hooks for complexity and agent-based modeling. You can even use the framework to understand the classic microeconomic experiments (here, here) and do real forecasting making it more empirical in light of the "credibility revolution".

But one important aspect of the information transfer framework is its plurality. It's a framework, not a specific theory. While I have taken to writing my own models in this framework, there is nothing preventing you from writing down a New Keynesian DSGE model, a stock-flow consistent model, "market monetarism", or even understanding completely different schools of economics.

This last paragraph is significant because it allows for a plurality of approaches in economics in terms of a single framework, where this is hardly possible now with no overarching framework in terms of which economics is pursued as a science.

Information Transfer Economics
Chris Dillow, information equilibrium is the framework you're looking for
Jason Smith

See also

Information transfer economics is getting some traction.

Information transfer economics: a year in review, and thanks