AIM Framework glossary
Methodological Reassessment Requirement
Canonical definition
The entailed consequence of the Empirical Acceptance Principle that existing studies must be reassessed at two levels: (1) interpretive reassessment (reinterpreting empirical findings through the three-source structure rather than undifferentiated preference models; and (2) methodological reassessment) examining the base assumptions embedded in each discipline’s methodology, including introspective reliability (psychology, in light of Source Opacity), preference exogeneity (economics, in light of Mimetic Desire), and transparent individual agency (law, in light of Confabulation and the Agent-Based Causal Default). In each case, the method is not wrong but incomplete, because it was designed within assumptions that AIM’s architecture shows to be structurally limited.
Explanation
Once you know motivation has three sources and that people can’t tell which source is driving them, you have to go back and ask: do the standard research methods still work as designed? Psychology’s questionnaires assume people can report their own motives accurately (Source Opacity says they can’t. Economics assumes your preferences are yours) Mimetic Desire says many were copied. The data these methods produced is fine; the interpretive lens needs updating, and in some cases the methods themselves need redesigning. Canonical reference: Chapter 5, Appendix 5C (The Consilience Frame). Related terms: Empirical Acceptance Principle, Non-Displacement Principle, Source Opacity, Confabulation, Undifferentiated Desire Fallacy, Camouflage Architecture.
Epistemic status
Metatheoretical Principle.