It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on the offered (...) odds. And even apart from this consideration, assigning probabilities to the options among which one is choosing is futile since such probabilities could be of no possible use in choice. The paper subjects these arguments to critical examination and suggests that, appearances notwithstanding, practical deliberation need not crowd outself-prediction. (shrink)

The development of a conception of critical pedagogy is itself an aspect of the development of critical rationality within late modern societies, closely connected with the role of education in developing critical rationality. The role of critique pervades all aspects of life: for people as citizens, workers and self-determining private individuals. Late modern societies depend on a critically minded population for their viability, for the democratic management of a competing balance of interests and for a (...) capacity for rapid renewal. These requirements put a demand on the education system for the development of critical rationality. However, its development contains within itself the seeds, not just of renewal, but of transformation or even anarchy. This is discussed in relation to three major aspects of education—liberal, civic and vocational—and it is argued that there is a tension within each that arises from the requirement of critique for their successful functioning as educational practices in liberal societies and from the implausibility of developing forms of critique that are inherently self-limiting. Societies that espouse the development of critical rationality as a key educational aim exist in a state of tension and of uncertainty as to the extent to which it can be developed. Attempts to limit critique to consideration only of what is worthwhile are bound to be futile. On the other hand, education must be concerned with preparation for the worthwhile. Critique thus performs the important function of ensuring that our conception of the worthwhile does not remain fixed, but is itself an agent of social change. This paper explores this issue and argues that the problem of reconciling preparation for social participation with preparation for critical engagement exists in all three spheres. The problems may not be resolvable ones but should encourage continual awareness of the scope and limits of educational critique in liberal societies. (shrink)

This article brings interconnects three debates to show what this might imply for the ‘redemocratisation’ of UK society and for pedagogical reform. One debate concerns deliberative types of democratic reform, arguing in favour of a ‘creative agnosticism’ towards the two philosophical frameworks which dominate this literature. This leads into a discussion of education and critical rationality, arguing for an aptitude-based account of moral agency, one which relates to the sociocultural resources we inherit from the past. The final debate (...) therefore concerns social memory. I do not offer a theory of social memory but critique various commentators in arguing for what I call a ‘multipolar analysis’. This both describes the analytical method adopted in this article and the skills and capacities which a system based upon ‘education for discourse’ would need to facilitate. The article therefore proposes that democracy, education and memory—deliberativeness, critical rationality and social remembering—be brought closer together for the mutual benefit of each debate. (shrink)

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

Deviant forms of human thought may provide insight into epistemic standards, such as rationality. A comparative analysis of paranoia and reinforced dogmatism suggests that reinforced dogmatism, such as pseudo-science a-la-Popper, demonstrates a primary epistemic lack of critical rationality, that is, of testability, whereas paranoia demonstrates a lack of range of alternative statements leading secondarily to a lack of testability. This reflects the importance to both epistemology and psychiatry of epistemic standards in addition to testability, such as relevance (...) to problems, and emphasizes the distinction of the context of introduction from the contexts of discovery and of justification. Key Words: context of introduction • paranoia • reinforced dogmatism • relevance • testability. (shrink)

Since Dilthey we have become used to thinking of reason as having a cultural and historical setting. If we take this insight seriously, then critical rationality or critical thinking can no longer be conceived of as context-free skills. This paper takes up the line of thought that is elaborated by Christopher Winch in his ‘Developing Critical Rationality as a Pedagogical Aim’ and seeks to explicate it by drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of ‘language games’ and (...) on the re-evaluation of ‘thinking’ by Theodor Ballauff (a German philosopher of education who was influenced by Martin Heidegger). The overcoming of a solipsistic and idealistic conception of thinking raises questions regarding the pedagogical settings and aims, as well as the problems over the limits of critique in education. A comparison of Ballauff's and Winch's positions reinforces the sense of the significance of critique: although the role of critical rationality within education is ambiguous and precarious, the investigation of autonomy (as an educational goal) shows that critique cannot be limited in any straightforward way. (shrink)

In our papers on the rationality of magic, we distinghuished, for purposes of analysis, three levels of rationality. First and lowest (rationalitYl) the goal directed action of an agent with given aims and circumstances, where among his circumstances we included his knowledge and opinions. On this level the magician's treatment of illness by incantation is as rational as any traditional doctor's blood-letting or any modern one's use of anti-biotics. At the second level (rationalitY2) we add the element of (...) rational thinking or thinking which obeys some set of explicit rules, a level which is not found in magic in general, though it is sometimes given to specific details of magical thinking within the magical thought-system. It was the late Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard who observed that when considering magic in detail the magician may be as consistent or critical as anyone else; but when considering magic in general, or any system of thought in general, the magician could not be critical or even comprehend the criticism. Evans-Pritchard went even further: he was sceptical as to whether it could be done in a truly consistent manner: one cannot be critical of one's own system, he thought. On this level (rationalitY2) of discussion we have explained (earlier) why we prefer to wed Evans Pritchard's view of the magician's capacity for piece-meal rationality to Sir James Frazer's view that magic in general is pseudo-rational because it lacks standards of rational thinking. (shrink)

: This paper develops four related claims: 1. Critical thinking should focus more on decision making, 2. the heuristics and bias literature developed by cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists provides many insights into human irrationality which can be useful in critical thinking instruction, 3. unfortunately the “rational choice” norms used by behavioral economists to identify “biased” decision making narrowly equate rational decision making with the efficient pursuit of individual satisfaction; deviations from these norms should not be treated as (...) an irrational bias, 4. a richer, procedural theory of rational decision making should be the basis for critical thinking instruction in decision making. (shrink)

This paper explores the sense in which modern societies can be said to be rational. Social rationality cannot be understood on the model of an idealized image of scientific method. Neither science nor society conforms to this image. Nevertheless, critique is routinely silenced by neo-liberal and technocratic arguments that appeal to social simulacra of science. This paper develops a critical strategy for addressing the resistance of rationality to rational critique. Romantic rejection of reason has proven less effective (...) than strategies that conceptualize modern artefacts, systems, and organizations as rationally underdetermined. This approach first appears in Marx's analysis of capitalist economics. Although he lacks the concept of underdetermination, Marx gets around the silencing effect of social rationality with something very much like it in his discussion of the length of the working day. Frankfurt School Critical Theory later blended romantic elements with Marxian ones in a suggestive but ambiguous mixture. The concept of underdetermination reappears in contemporary science and technology studies, now clearly articulated and philosophically and sociologically elaborated. But somewhere along the way the critical thrust was diluted. Critical theory of technology attempts to recover that thrust. Here its approach is generalized to cover the three main forms of social rationality. (shrink)

This paper considers criticisms of the author's Science and Scepticism advanced by Fred D' Agostino, Graham Oddie, Elie Zahar, Alan Musgrave, and John Worrall. The criticisms concern the following topics: the aim of science, unified theoryhood, the empirical basis, corroboration by already known evidence, the idea that scientific theories need be no more than possibly true, and the pragmatic problem of induction. Various clarifications and improvements result, and on the last topic the author significantly modifies his position.

The present article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent, critical thinking should make attunement to current social and political landscapes central to its practice. I begin by outlining what I consider to be the basic positions in the debate about the political contextualisation of critical thinking, which are referred to as the crypto-Enlightenment and the critical pedagogical models. I argue, on the basis of various strands of research, that there is a prima facie case (...) to be made in favour of the critical pedagogical position that favours forefronting the social and political context of critical thinking and thinking in general. I then draw attention, however, to problems of coherence and justification in the critical pedagogical position, before turning, finally, to an alternative grounding of critical thinking that takes seriously the historical and social contextualisation of thinking without the coherence problems of critical pedagogy. My conclusion is that while the critical pedagogical model is right to point to the fatal incompleteness of Enlightenment-style critical thinking due to its failure to properly acknowledge the norm-saturated nature of historical consciousness, critical pedagogy itself fails to offer a coherent alternative to the problem of integrating value and rationality in a more full-blown grounding of critical thinking. I suggest that a hermeneutical model that integrates the rational, axiological and historical moments in consciousness provides a more satisfying foundation for understanding the trajectory and purpose of critical thinking. (shrink)

Kei Yoshida critically assesses five different theoretical approaches to cultural interpretivism and conclusions on rationality. This book reveals the need for a cogent solution to the problem of rationality and urges social scientists to interpret symbolic systems' or agents’ intentions as well as explain the consequences of human actions.

This paper considers two philosophical problems and their relation to science education. The first involves the rationality of science; it is argued here that the traditional view, according to which science is rational because of its adherence to (a non-standard conception of) scientific method, successfully answers one central question concerning science''s rationality. The second involves the aims of education; here it is argued that a fundamental educational aim is the fostering of rationality, or its educational cognate, (...) class='Hi'>critical thinking. The ramifications of these two philosophical theses for science education are then considered, and a science education which takes reasons in science as its fundamental feature is sketched. (shrink)

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding (...) principle of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value. (shrink)

In this paper, after showing how the postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality apply to critical thinking, I argue that a critical discussion on any subject must assume specific principles of rationality. I then show how these principles can be used to critique and reject postmodern claims about the contextual nature of rationality.

Rationality and the Genetic Challenge by Matti Häyry is a well-written and thoughtful book about important issues in the contemporary ethical discussion of genetics. The book is well structured around seven practical themes that the author takes to exemplify “the genetic challenge.” He also refers to them as “seven ways of making people better,” which the subtitle of the book already puts into question form: Making People Better? In the first chapter of the book, Häyry introduces these seven themes (...) and he discusses each of them in Chapters 3–9. In the remaining two chapters, 2 and 10, he describes the main normative positions analyzed in the book and clarifies his own methodology and position. He chooses six authors, or three pairs of authors, whom he takes to “represent the three normative doctrines of Western Moral philosophy” in order to demonstrate six “divergent rationalities” or “methods of genethics.” In this way, Häyry both summarizes the main prescriptive positions in contemporary bioethical debate and contrasts them with his own “nonconfrontational notion of rationality,” which aims to show that there is a variety of divergent, not mutually exclusive normative views, the justification of which “depends ultimately on the choice of worldviews, attitudes, and ideas about the foundation of moral worth”. (shrink)

Habermas has argued that many of the endemic socio- economic problems of Western society are either symptoms or prod ucts of a 'lopsided' process of cultural rationalization, one that has emphasized instrumental forms of rationality over communicative. But other than presenting a rather general typology of lifeworld pathologies, Habermas has not done much to specify what these problems might be, nor has he provided any 'middle-range' analysis of the mechanisms through which they might be generated. This paper discusses some (...) of the ways in which, consistent with Haber mas's general framework, rational choice theory can be used for pre cisely this task. In this analysis, rational choice theory is not presented as a comprehensive theory of action, but is employed as a critical- diagnostic tool that allows the theorist to identify undesirable social interaction patterns that arise from a broader instrumentalization of the lifeworld. Key Words: critical theory • Habermas • instrumental rationality • market failure • rational choice theory. (shrink)

Beginning with a discussion of the Informal Logic Movement and the renewed interest in critical thinking in education, this book critically assesses the work of Robert Ennis, Richard Paul and John McPeck.

A major virtue of the Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation is its commitment to reasonableness and rationality as central criteria of argumentative quality. However, the account of these key notions offered by the originators of this theory, Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, seems to us problematic in several respects. In what follows we criticize that account and suggest an alternative, offered elsewhere, that seems to us to be both independently preferable and more in keeping with the epistemic approach to (...) arguments and argumentation we favor. (shrink)

I raise two worries about the Debunker's and Defeater Dilemmas, respectively, and I argue that moral cognition is inextricable from social cognition, which tends to rationalize deep social inequality. I thus opine that our moral-social capacities fare badly in profoundly unjust social contexts such as our own.

The position of rational egoism centres upon the thought that the rational thing to do must be to pursue one's own self-interest. Focusing on the work of Hobbes and Sidgwick, this book is an extensive history and evaluation of rational egoism. They are, after the ancients, the foremost exponents of rational egoism. He also considers other figures - Grotius, Samuel Clarke, John Clarke, Butler, Hume, Reid, Kant, Paley and Bentham - and a related position: the instrumental theory of rationality. (...) Robert Shaver's conclusion is that none of the arguments for rational egoism or the instrumental theory are cogent. This is an important book not just for historians of philosophy but for all readers in philosophy or the social sciences interested in theories of morality and rationality. (shrink)

This chapter is concerned with the distinction that most contemporary epistemologists express by distinguishing between “propositional” and “doxastic” justification. The goal is to develop an account of this distinction that applies, not just to full or outright beliefs, but also to partial credences—and indeed, in principle, to attitudes of all kinds. The standard way of explaining this distinction, in terms of the “basing relation”, is criticized, and an alternative account—the “virtue manifestation” account—is proposed in its place. This account has a (...) certain kinship with the epistemological approach that is known as “reliabilism”, but it also has certain key differences—above all, it is compatible with an internalist view of rationality. (shrink)

The unusual applicability of mathematics to the description of the physical reality still remains a major investigative task for philosophers, physicists, mathematicians and cognitive scientists. The presented article offers a critical analysis of the philosophical motivations and development of a major attempt to resolve this task put forward by two prominent Polish philosophers: Józef Życiński and Michał Heller. In order to explain this particular property of mathematics Życiński has first introduced the concept of the field of rationality together (...) with the field of potentiality to be followed by Heller’s formal field and the field of categories. It turns out that these concepts are fully intelligible once located within philosophical stances on the relations between mathematics and physical reality. It will be argued that in order to achieve more extended conceptual clarification of the precise meaning of the field of rationality, further advancements in the understanding of the nature of the human mind are required. (shrink)

For over thirty years, Robert Audi has produced important work in ethics, epistemology, and the theory of action. This volume features thirteen new critical essays on Audi by a distinguished group of authors: Fred Adams, William Alston, Laurence BonJour, Roger Crisp, Elizabeth Fricker, Bernard Gert, Thomas Hurka, Hugh McCann, Al Mele, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Raimo Tuomela, Candace Vogler, and Timothy Williamson. Audi's introductory essay provides a thematic overview interconnecting his views in ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of action. The volume concludes (...) with his comprehensive response essay that yields an illuminating dialog with all his critics and often extends his previous work. (shrink)

Education's Epistemology extends and defends Siegel's "reasons conception" of critical thinking, developing it in both philosophical and educational directions. Of particular note is its emphasis on epistemic quality and epistemic rationality and its concerted defense of "universal" educational and philosophical ideals in the face of multicultural, postmodern, and other challenges.

Certification for biofuels has been developed to ensure that biofuel production methods adhere to social and environmental sustainability standards. As such, requiring biofuel production to be certified has become part of EU policy through the 2009 renewable energy directive, that aims to promote energy security, reduce emissions and promote rural development. According to the EU RED, in 2020 10 % of our transport energy should come from renewable sources, most of which are expected to be biofuels. In this paper I (...) examine what biofuel certificates are, what they can achieve and what their limitations are. Methodologically, I will evaluate them using the standards of instrumental, practical and communicative rationality. With regard to instrumental rationality, I conclude that the EU RED makes an important but unjustified assumption in demanding certified biofuels for its target: that if biofuel production is sustainable, then biofuel use is too. I also argue that, where the EU assumes that biofuel certification is a sufficient means to achieve the EU RED’s goals, it is at best an insufficient means and at worst not a means at all towards achieving these goals. With regard to practical rationality, I argue that more attention needs to be paid to trade-offs between different goals in the EU RED, particularly with regard to providing investor security and not capping transport energy consumption. With regard to communicative rationality, I argue that the policy-making process of the EU RED has been seriously flawed, and that certification development processes also can improve significantly. (shrink)

This book asks how a more liberating economics could be constructed and taught. It suggests that if economists today are serious about emancipation and empowerment, they will have to radically change their conception about what it means for a citizen to act rationally in a complex society. Arnsperger emphasises that current economics neglects an important fact: Many of us ask not only 'what's in it for us', within a given socio-economic context; we also care about the context itself. The author (...) argues that if citizens keen on exercising their critical reason actually demanded economic theories that allowed them to do so, economics would have to become a constantly emerging, open-ended knowledge process. He claims that in a truly free economy, there would be no all-out war between 'orthodox' and 'heterodox' approaches, but an intricate and unpredictable 'post-orthodox' pluralism that would emerge from the citizens' own complex interactions. Offering an original and path-breaking combination of insights from Hayek, the theory of complexity, and the Frankfurt School of social criticism, Arnsperger discusses how such a free economy would generate its specific brand of economics, called 'Critical Political Economy'. (shrink)

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

This book is the first full-length treatment of rational egoism, and it provides both a selective history of the subject as well as a philosophical analysis of the arguments that have been deployed in its defense.

The natural bias towards the contemporary in teaching and in research, combined with numerous specialized journals, mean that certain areas of philosophy, including ethics, are in danger of forgetting their past. In that context, history of philosophy of the high standard exemplified in this book is particularly important.

In order to account for how children can generalize words beyond a very limited set of labeled examples, Bloom's proposal of word learning requires two extensions: a better understanding of the “general learning and memory abilities” involved, and a principled framework for integrating multiple conflicting constraints on word meaning. We propose a framework based on Bayesian statistical inference that meets both of those needs.

A collection of essays by prestigious authors discussing the work of Bernard Gert, Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College.

Bayesianism is the predominant philosophy of science in North-America, the most important school of statistics world-wide, and the general version of the rational-choice approach in the social sciences. Although often rejected as a theory of actual behavior, it is still the benchmark case of perfect rationality. The paper reviews the development of Bayesianism in philosophy, statistics and decision making and questions its status as an account of perfect rationality. Bayesians, who otherwise are squarely in the empiricist camp, invoke (...) a priori reasoning when they recommend Bayesian methods - a recommendation that is not justified by their own standards. (shrink)