FRAMES, INFERENCES AND RATIONALITY

This paper adopts a distinction between two uses of the notion of rationality, the `rationality of frame' and the `rationality of inference'. Rationality of frame is the rationality of the choices made between conceptual frames, for instance, between paradigms in science. Rationality of inference is the rationality of choices made between inferences, i.e. between rules which, in a given conceptual frame, allow actors to reach a decision or to solve a problem; many examples can be found in microeconomics (the rule of optimization) and in cognitive psychology (models of cognition). This distinction is suitable for the study of the controversies and misunderstandings that arise concerning the notion of rationality and it throws some light on controversies about rationality as optimization in microeconomics (the neo-classical versus evolutionary paradigm), choice anomalies (neo-classical economics versus cognitive psychology), and scientific creativity (cognitive psychology versus philosophy of science).