xii Introduction
ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT “THE THING IN ITSELF”
Fixing problems in the social world is complex; complex problems require
research. All good research starts with a question. The Roman emperor-
philosopher Marcus Aurelius, in one of his meditations, appeals to his
reader to begin an inquiry by asking, “This thing, what is it in itself, in its
own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what is its causal
nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it
subsist?” He is essentially asking, “What is it? What does it do?” One would
think that so old, so basic, and so humble an approach to understanding
things would be the foundation of social inquiry. Unfortunately, it is not.
Instead, for a few seemingly good reasons, inquiry in the social sciences
tends to begin with assumptions. Assumptions can be good and they can
be bad; that is, they can be useful, or they can hinder understanding. They
shape the questions that we use to explore a phenomenon. Why is this
important?
Let’s say you are studying poverty, and you—like I did years ago—assume
that poverty is the result of a lack of educational attainment among impov-
erished people compared to middle-class people. You might come up with
a question like, “How does educational attainment explain poverty?” You
will without a doubt find that educational attainment explains some income
inequality between groups.
Someone who writes public policy will ask you what should be done to
eliminate poverty. You will point to a large body of research that shows a
relationship between education and income, and suggest that policy- makers
increase the educational attainment of impoverished people. What will
then happen, as has happened for over a century of increased educational
attainment of disadvantaged people, is that poverty will continue, almost
unabated. Today in the United States we have, in fact, the most educated
underclass ever to walk on Earth.
Of course, this is not to say education has not helped many poor people.
It has: some poor people have risen out of poverty, in part by using the
skills and knowledge they learned in school. Still, there is a huge difference
between “being useful to some poor people” and “being an effective tool for
eliminating poverty.”
Professor Brian Epstein, a philosopher of science and professor at
Tufts University, gave a TEDx Talk at his alma mater, Stanford Univer-
sity, titled, “The End of Social Science as We Know It” (2015). In this
talk, Epstein touches on the problem of assumptions in the social sci-
ences, and argues that social scientists need to spend more time posing
questions that ask “What is it?” instead of “How does it work?” We’ll
discuss why this is important later, but for now, know that this book is
an attempt to take up his invitation, which I consider an echo of Emperor
Aurelius’s meditation.
