This paper discusses responses to Disagreement, Deference, and Rational Commitment from Bogardus and Burton, Thurow, and Kvanvig. Each of these responses objects to the rationalist account of “partisan justification” defended in the book. After explaining partisan justification and its significance, I first take up Bogardus and Burton’s argument for a more restrictive account of partisan justification which says that partisan justification requires certainty. I argue that this account yields implausible discontinuities in the verdicts given to nearly identical cases. Next, (...) I consider Thurow’s suggestion that perceptual evidence can provide partisan justification without supporting rational insight. I explain why insight plays a crucial role in cases where perceptual beliefs enjoy partisan justification. Finally, I address Kvanvig’s objection that my account of partisan justification applies only to highly reflective agents. I argue that a subject’s actual reflectiveness does not bear on the sense of justification principally at issue in the disagreement literature. (shrink)

BonJour offers two main reasons for supposing that there is such a thing as rational insight into necessity. First, he says there are many examples in which it clearly seems that one has such insight. Second, he argues that any epistemology denying the existence of rational insight into necessity is committed to a narrow skepticism. After commenting about possible frameworks for epistemological justification, I argue against these two claims in reverse order.

There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that (...) this may happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is. (shrink)

BonJour offers two main reasons for supposing that there is such a thing as rational insight into necessity. First, he says there are many examples in which it clearly seems that one has such insight. Second, he argues that any epistemology denying the existence of rational insight into necessity is committed to a narrow skepticism. After commenting about possible frameworks for epistemological justification, I argue against these two claims in reverse order.

In In Defense of Pure Reason [IDPR], BonJour advances a version of moderate rationalism, the thesis that rational insight is an independent, though fallible, source of a priori epistemic justification. To demonstrate that this thesis must obtain, BonJour argues that rational insight is truth conducive and that no infallibilist rationalist theory could be correct. This article aims to establish two points: (1) BonJour’s argument for the fallibilist thesis is problematic because it invokes implausible conditions on justification, conditions that (...) even BonJour rejects; (2) BonJour’s argument for the truth conduciveness of rational insight fails because it does not (and cannot) account for the truth-conduciveness of fallible rational insights. (shrink)

BonJour offers two main reasons for supposing that there is such a thing as rational insight into necessity. First, he says there are many examples in which it clearly seems that one has such insight. Second, he argues that any epistemology denying the existence of rational insight into necessity is committed to a narrow skepticism. After commenting about possible frameworks for epistemological justification, I argue against these two claims in reverse order.

Extremists who have been well educated in science are quite common, but nevertheless puzzling. How can individuals with high levels of scientific education fall prey to irrationalist ideologies? Implicit assumptions about rationality may lead to tremendous and conspicuous developments. When correction of social deficits is seen as a pressing problem, it is quite common that individuals conclude that some religious or political system contains the all-encompassing answer, if only it is applied with sufficiently high standards. Implicit assumptions about rationally high (...) standards often demand consistency, system and justification. The strict application of these standards to political and/or religious systems leads quite readily to extremism. J. L. Talmon has shown how the rationality of the Enlightenment led to intolerance, dictatorship and torture. The Enlightenment view of rationality can also encourage irrationalist ideologies and extremism: it leads individuals to conclude that various religions and/or political systems contain all encompassing answers, if only they are systematic, coherant and justified. Alternative theories of science and rationality, which view rationality as critical, partial, and progressive, and which seek to improve imperfect standards, can help avoid the unintended support of extremism rendered by established views of rationality. Unfortunately such theories meet enormous resistance: they call into question well-established canonical doctrines. (shrink)

Pinillos’ Why We Doubt presents a powerful critique of such global skeptical assertions as “I don’t know I am not a brain-in-a-vat (BIV)” by introducing a cognitive mechanism that is sensitive to error possibilities and a Bayesian rule of rationality that this mechanism is designed to approximate. This multifaceted argument offers a novel counter to global skepticism, contending that our basis for believing such premises is underminable. In this work, we engage with Pinillos’ adoption of Bayesianism, questioning whether the Bayesian (...) principle that he invokes truly does fail to generate the verdict that we don’t we aren’t BIVs, contrary to what Pinillos asserts. Furthermore, we argue that Pinillos’ empirical argument is not empirical enough; we need a lot more empirical work if we are going to counter global skepticism and win over neutral bystanders. (shrink)

Pinillos’ Why We Doubt presents a powerful critique of such global skeptical assertions as “I don’t know I am not a brain-in-a-vat (BIV)” by introducing a cognitive mechanism that is sensitive to error possibilities and a Bayesian rule of rationality that this mechanism is designed to approximate. This multifaceted argument offers a novel counter to global skepticism, contending that our basis for believing such premises is underminable. In this work, we engage with Pinillos’ adoption of Bayesianism, questioning whether the Bayesian (...) principle that he invokes truly does fail to generate the verdict that we don’t we aren’t BIVs, contrary to what Pinillos asserts. Furthermore, we argue that Pinillos’ empirical argument is not empirical enough; we need a lot more empirical work if we are going to counter global skepticism and win over neutral bystanders. (shrink)

Axiomatic rationality is defined in terms of conformity to abstract axioms. Savage limited axiomatic rationality to small worlds, that is, situations in which the exhaustive and mutually exclusive set of future states S and their consequences C are known. Others have interpreted axiomatic rationality as a categorical norm for how human beings should reason, arguing in addition that violations would lead to real costs such as money pumps. Yet a review of the literature shows little evidence that violations are actually (...) associated with any measurable costs. Limiting axiomatic rationality to small worlds, I propose a naturalized version of rationality for situations of intractability and uncertainty, all of which are not in. In these situations, humans can achieve their goals by relying on heuristics that may violate axiomatic rationality. The study of ecological rationality requires formal models of heuristics and an analysis of the structures of environments these can exploit. It lays the foundation of a moderate naturalism in epistemology, providing statements about heuristics we should use in a given situation. Unlike axiomatic rationality, ecological rationality can explain less-is-more effects, formalize when one should move from ‘is’ to ‘ought,’ and be evaluated by goals beyond coherence, such as predictive accuracy, frugality, and efficiency. Ecological rationality can be seen as a formalization of means–end instrumentalist rationality, based on Herbert Simon’s insight that rational behavior is a function of the mind and its environment. (shrink)

Rational intuitions involve a particular form of understanding that gives them a special epistemic status. This form of understanding and its epistemic efficacy are not explained by several current theories of rational intuition, including Phenomenal Conservatism (Huemer, Skepticism and the veil of perception, 2001 ; Ethical intuitionism, 2005 ; Philos Phenomenol Res 74:30–55, 2007 ), Proper Functionalism (Plantinga, Warrant and proper function, 1993 ), the Competency Theory (Bealer Pac Philos Q 81:1–30, 2000 ; Sosa, A virtue epistemology, 2007 (...) ) and the Direct Awareness View (Conee, Philos Phenomenol Res 4:847–857, 1998 ; Bonjour, In defense of pure reason, 1998 ). Some overlook it; others try to account for it but fail. We can account for the role of understanding in rational intuition by returning to the view of some of the early Rationalists, e.g. Descartes and Leibniz. While that view carries a prohibitive cost, it does contain an insight that may help us solve the problem of giving understanding its due. (shrink)

'The Rational and the Moral Order' is a significant book providing a comprehensive theory of morality. The opening chapter is simply marvellous. Baier provides a cogent response to Hume's conundrums on practical reasoning: logical entailment, he argues, is not the correct model of the relation between reasons and that for which they are reasons. Indeed, the giving of reasons is, in part, a social enterprise, and there is no necessary connection between rationality and self-interest. Just as the giving of (...) reasons is a social enterprise taught to succeeding generations, so too is the moral enterprise, for a moral order is a social order of some sort. It is a social order that encourages a critical stance toward, and permits the correction of, its mores. Moral precepts can be sound or unsound, and yet can be relative to a moral order. In the concluding chapter Baier shows how his theoretical framework can be used to confront some of the moral problems people face, problems which have also exercised contemporary philosophers. Though there are many philosophers who believe that killing is worse than letting anyone die, there are few that defend the view other than by raw intuition. Baier deploys the resources of his theory of morality in support of this widely shared but poorly defended viewpoints. "Along the way, Baier deals with virtually all the problems that have taxed moral philosophers for a very long time -- rationality, responsibility, morality's relation to law, the good life, prisoner's dilemma, moral motivation, and others. The Rational and the Moral Order is careful, insightful, and convincing." --Theodore M. Benditt, University of Alabama. (shrink)

A nontechnical, concise, and rigorous introduction to the rational choice paradigm,focusing on basic insights applicable in fields ranging from economics to philosophy.

This book offers a rigorous, concise, and nontechnical introduction to some of the fundamental insights of rational choice theory. It draws on formal theories of microeconomics, decision making, games, and social choice, and on ideas developed in philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Itzhak Gilboa argues that economic theory has provided a set of powerful models and broad insights that have changed the way we think about everyday life. He focuses on basic insights of the rational choice (...) paradigm--the general conceptualization rather than a particular theory--that survive recent critiques of economic theory's various failures. Gilboa explains the main concepts in language accessible to the nonspecialist, offering a nonmathematical guide to some of the main ideas developed in economic theory in the second half of the twentieth century. Chapters cover feasibility and desirability, utility maximization, constrained optimization, expected utility, probability and statistics, aggregation of preferences, games and equilibria, free markets, and rationality and emotions. Online appendixes offer additional material, including a survey of relevant mathematical concepts. (shrink)

On one conception of practical rationality, being rational is most fundamentally a matter of avoiding incoherent combinations of attitudes. This conception construes the norms of rationality as codified by rational requirements, and one plausible rational requirement is that you not be akratic: that you not judge, all things considered, that you ought to ϕ while failing to choose or intend to ϕ. On another conception of practical rationality, being rational is most fundamentally a matter of thinking (...) or acting in a way that’s informed by your practical reasons. This second conception construes the norms of rationality in terms that appear to allow the possibility of rational akrasia, since your capacity to act on your reasons can function at a level that need not involve deliberative judgment. Though their treatments of akrasia make them seem incompatible, I’ll argue that the two conceptions of rationality are not incompatible. It is possible to accommodate the core insight motivating defenses of ‘rational’ akrasia within the conception of rationality as codified by requirements of rational coherence. (shrink)

In contrast to dominant approaches to human reason involving essentially a logical and instrumental conception of rationality easily modeled by artificial intelligence mechanisms, I argue that the specific capacities of the human mind are meta-analytic in nature, understood as irreducible to the analytic or the logical, or else the computational. Firstly, the assumption of a meta-analytical level of rationality is derived from key insights developed in various branches of the social sciences. This meta-analytical level is then inferred from Gödel’s (...) incompleteness theorem. On these bases, and with the help of psychological approaches to consciousness, I argue that human rationality may be characterized as the capacity to make meaningful use of signs. (shrink)

Although most theorists of healthcare rationing argue that rationing, including rationing that takes place in the physician–patient relationship is unavoidable, some health professionals strongly disagree. In a recent essay, Vegard Bruun Wyller argues that bedside rationing is immoral and thoroughly at odds with a sound view of the physician–patient relationship. We take Wyller to be an articulate exponent of the reluctance to participate in rationing found among some clinicians. Our essay attempts to refute the five crucial premises of his argument (...) yet build on his genuine insights. In our analysis, Wyller’s critique of bedside rationing is instructive both for harbouring some very common misconceptions that must be exposed and refuted, but also for offering important words of caution. In particular, bedside rationing must be performed in ways that do not harm the physician–patient relationship. Read irenically, Wyller’s critique is a reminder of what must not be lost in our painful endeavour to update the ethics of medicine to encompass the unavoidability of rationing. (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)

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover (...) a new perspective on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

I aim to analyze in this dissertation what a desirable basic institutional structure looks like from the perspective of rationality. While the main topic is thus normative in nature, I start by clarifying in the first part what the notion of rationality exactly entails. I do so by focusing explicitly on the economic conception of rationality, according to which a rational individual is motivated to serve his self-interest on the basis of cost-benefit calculations. Such a Homo Economicus is characterized (...) by his intentional and instrumental actions, his perfectly informed beliefs and his exogenously given and egoistic preferences. In my view, however, this model is inadequate if one aims to understand what it means to be rational. The requirements that actions should be instrumental, beliefs should be based on perfect information and preferences should be exogenously given and egoistic in nature turn out to be overly demanding in this respect. That is why I propose to drop these assumptions in what I label the minimal conception of rationality. Since the latter turns out to be very formal indeed, I propose two further alternatives, which focus not so much on the choice of means to achieve certain goals, as they focus on the choice of these goals themselves. According to the first, broad conception, actions are rational if they are based on good reasons, which are further qualified as well-informed beliefs and autonomous preferences. According to the second, expressive conception, actions, beliefs and preferences are rational if they express the things the individual at hand cares about. The latter requires that individuals can reflect upon and identify with their reasons, which implies a capacity to reflect upon and distance themselves from their own bundle of preferences. In the second part of this dissertation, I try to show the value and limitations of these conceptions by applying them to the context of large-scaled elections. In this respect, it becomes immediately clear that the economic conception fails to explain why quite a lot of people go out and vote. After all, since a single vote has only an infinitesimal impact on the electoral result, it does not enable people to serve their interests or realize their goals. This leads to the so-called voting paradox, according to which no rational individual will decide to vote. The standard solution is to assume that individuals vote because they derive satisfaction from the very act itself. However, this strategy is rather ‘ad hoc’ and does not explain how people vote once they find themselves inside the voting booth. The expressive conception of rationality does better in this respect. It suggests that people vote because they care about democracy in general or about a specific political candidate or ideology. Since they conceive of themselves as being a good citizen, they express this aspect of their identity by going out to vote. In the third part of this dissertation, I analyze more fully the normative implications of the different conceptions of rationality. More specifically, I try to answer the question which basic institutional structure is desirable if one assumes that people are by and large rational. This immediately shows that both the normative issue and the explanatory issue are closely connected. In my view, proposals regarding institutional design and reform should be based on empirically adequate models of individual actions and motivations. This search for a realistic utopia goes against the conventional strategy of most economists. They rely on the Homo Economicus model, even if this fails to explain individual behavior. To explain more fully what the normative implications are of the counterfactual assumption that all people are economically rational, I focus on the work of James Buchanan. In his theory of constitutional choice, he argues in favor of a minimal state whose only task is to make sure that the market functions properly. Buchanan thus favors strict constitutional limitations for governments, which tend to expand beyond legitimate borders as soon as politicians and public servants are allowed to serve their own interests. In my view, however, the abovementioned criticisms of the Homo Economicus model have theoretical as well as normative implications. After all, the empirically supported fact that a majority of individuals does not act in economically rational ways creates more room for legitimate government intervention. Expressively rational citizens will, for example, more easily agree on the necessity and desirability of a collective provision of certain public goods. In addition, expressively rational politicians and public servants can be more easily trusted to serve the public interest rather than their narrowly defined self-interest. As an alternative to Buchanan’s one-sided focus on economic rationality and the market, I focus on the work of Samuel Bowles en Herbert Gintis. More specifically, I explore their work on the phenomenon of strong reciprocity, which refers to the widespread tendency of people to reward prosocial behavior and punish antisocial behavior, even if this is costly for themselves. Since this is clearly economically irrational, Bowles and Gintis propose to complement the Homo Economicus model with the Homo Reciprocans model. This model, which comes close to the expressive conception of rationality, is able to incorporate the insight that social norms surrounding reciprocity, cooperation and fairness are crucial in regulating interactions. At the normative level, Bowles and Gintis stress that such norms often lead to socially desirable outcomes, since they enable people to live in harmony without relying on coercive and costly government interventions. This suggests that the debate between proponents of the market on the one hand and the state on the other hand neglects the importance of communities where people spontaneously interact on the basis of generally prosocial norms. As such, the insights of Bowles and Gintis lead to a defense of a basic institutional structure in which markets, states and communities mutually complement and reinforce each other. They also justify a general optimism as regards to the capacity and motivation of people to try and improve the rules and institutions that govern their everyday lives. (shrink)

0. Rational Rabbis aspires to make two main points, one philosophical and contemporary, the other interpretative and historical. The book’s philosophical undertaking, presented in Part I, is to develop a central insight of Karl Popper’s into a more fuller theory of rational endeavor. The book’s interpretative and main undertaking, presented in Part II, is to argue (a) that the talmudic literature bears clear witness to a tannaitic view of humanly possible intellectual achievement intriguingly akin to the theory of (...) rationality proposed in Part I, and (b) that despite appearances to the contrary, it is a voice centrally responsible for the Bavli’s halakhic discourse and project. The TR session at AAR 2002 focused on this second last claim by means of a close reading of the ‘meitivi’ sugya presented in Bavli, Berakhot 19b-20a. A detailed reading of the sugya can now be accessed at: http://jtr.lib.virginia.edu/volume4/number2/TR04_02_a01.html What follows briefly summarizes that reading and outlines its broader philosophical and hermeneutical settings. (shrink)

A striking thesis lies at the core of Davidson's philosophy: when we attribute intentional content to another creature's mental states and speech acts, we must treat the creature as largely conforming to our own rational norms. I will discuss how this thesis informs Davidson's treatment of rationality and intentionality. After reviewing some historical background, I present basic aspects of Davidson's position. I then examine various worries about the position. I conclude by highlighting some key Davidsonian insights into rationality.

Research from behavioural sciences shows that people reach decisions in a much less rational and well-considered way than was often assumed. The doctrine of informed consent, which is an important ethical principle and legal requirement in medical practice, is being challenged by these insights into decision-making and real-world choice behaviour. This article discusses the implications of recent insights of research on decision-making behaviour for the informed consent doctrine. It concludes that there is a significant tension between the (...) often non-rational choice behaviour and the traditional theory of informed consent. Responsible ways of dealing with or solving these problems are considered. To this end, patient decisions aids are discussed as suitable interventions to support autonomous decision-making. However, current PDAs demand certain improvements in order to protect and promote autonomous decision-making. Based on a conception of autonomy, we will argue which type of improvements are needed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:New Insights on Young PopperJohn R. WetterstenSeven essays that Popper wrote from 1925 to 1932–33 show Popper's transition from a fresh student of pedagogy into a serious philosopher of science ten years later. His first essay was published in 1925, and in 1934–35 he presented a revolutionary philosophy. These essays led first to Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (written between 1930 and 1933 but first published in 1979) (...) and culminated in Logik der Forschung.1. Students as IndividualsIn his first published essay Popper argued that each student should be treated as an individual as much as possible.1 It is evident that Popper held this attitude throughout his life, but this essay plays no interesting role in his intellectual development.2. HeimatIn his second essay Popper developed an idea that was important not only for his pedagogy, but also for his psychology and his theory of the open society: because humans tend quite naturally to be dogmatic, they have to learn to overcome dogmatism in order to be rational.2 Following a perspective [End Page 603] heavily indebted to Eduard Burger,3 Karl Bühler,4 and Charlotte Bühler,5 Popper proposed that all aspects of learning begin with the beliefs and attitudes that one learns at "home." Teachers, Popper says, should not ignore the cultural background of their students. This background derives from their home, from their parents or village, and so forth. Teachers should accept the students' dogmatic acceptance of the views and attitudes of home as a necessary, even useful stage in any child's development. The teacher's central task is to help children move away from this dogmatic stage to broader perspectives. How to do this well, he says, poses a, if not the, central pedagogical problem. He discusses the movement from home to aesthetics, to art, to ethics, to law, to the theory of knowledge and science, and to culture. In each case he finds something in the heritage of home that each child possesses, which may be used as a starting point to expand the child's horizons.The problem of how teachers can sympathetically help children move away from the views of their home to broader perspectives is severe, Popper thought, due to the innate need of children to think dogmatically. When children learn the culture of their home they are given certainties that they cling to. As individuals mature, dogmatic thinking has to be overcome: a crucial task for teachers is to help children to set aside their innate dogmatic attitude to engage in critical thinking.At this time Popper was groping for a good philosophical approach. He said that the concept of "Heimat" had to be analyzed because, even though it was at the center of pedagogical concerns, it was a confused concept. This analytical method was quickly abandoned. It is only a historical curiosity that shows how far he had to go in order to develop a new philosophical method. Yet his use of it did bring him to adopt, or he used it to defend, views that he held throughout his life.3. Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der ErziehungIn the same year (1927), in Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der Erziehung, Popper turned to the task of providing a psychological explanation of the child's need for dogmatism. This third essay was submitted to the Pedagogic Institute, but only became available after Popper's death. Popper was ambivalent about it. When I visited him at his home in Penn in 1973 or 1974, I asked him for a copy. It was then listed in his bibliography, but there were no copies at the University of Vienna. His wife began to say she knew where it was, but he interrupted her before her sentence was completed. But he did not throw it away. The reason for his reluctance to show scholars his essay is [End Page 604] now clear: the essay endorses a philosophy of science—Hans Vaihinger's—with a strong inductivist component, even though its methodology is deductivist. He tried to apply this method in his own psychological investigation of dogmatism in children.Dogmatism was, he thought, a psychological... (shrink)

Over the course of the past several decades, Kant scholars have made significant headway in showing that emotions play a more significant role in Kant's ethics than has traditionally been assumed. Closer attention has been paid to the Metaphysics of Morals (MS) where Kant provides important insights about the value of moral sentiments and the role they should play in our lives. One particularly important discussion occurs in sections 34 and 35 of the Doctrine of Virtue where Kant claims (...) we have a duty to use sympathetic feelings "as a means of promoting active and rational benevolence" (MS 6:457). Kant labels this the "duty of humanity," and he suggests that nature has implanted sympathetic feelings in us "to do what the representation of duty alone might not accomplish" (ibid.). Commentators have rightly highlighted these remarks as prime evidence that feelings do play a positive role in Kant's ethics after all. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment by Frederick C. BeiserJohn W. YoltonFrederick C. Beiser. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xi + 332. Cloth, $39.50.Beiser characterizes the methodology of his study as historical and philosophical: historical in placing texts in their own context and in uncovering the intentions (...) of their authors; philosophical in reconstructing and appraising arguments (ix). Both methods are necessary for good historical work. The second is often practiced without the first, to the detriment of philosophy and its history. “A philosopher who reconstructs arguments without the aid of history indulges in mere guesswork and anachronism, measuring the standards of philosophical relevance and importance by the concerns of his own age” (x). Equally, understanding the arguments and ideas of, e.g., seventeenth-century writers, “also involves testing their truth: seeing how they cohere with one another, what their consequences are, whether they follow from the evidence adduced for them, and if they reply to the objections made against them” (x). This splendid study of the role of reason in seventeenth-century religion, science, and philosophy is a fine example of careful textual-historical scholarship with rigorous philosophical analysis.The goal of his study is to tell “the story of how rationalism, in the very specific sense of the sovereignty of reason, arose in seventeenth-century England” (5). Starting with an introduction which discusses such topics as “The Paradox of the English Enlightenment,” “Rationalism in the English Church,” “The Enlightenment and the New Sciences,” Beiser proceeds to detailed presentations and discussions of “The Protestant Challenge” (Chap. 1); Richard Hookers’s defense of reason (Chap. 2); the views of the Great Tew Circle, e.g., Falkland, Chillingworth, Hammond, Hales (Chap. 3); the Cambridge Platonists (Chap. 4); the nature of Enthusiasm (Chap. 5); John Toland and Deism (Chap. 6); and ethical rationalism (Chap. 7).Many of the topics covered have been the subjects of other books and articles. What marks Beiser’s account is the freshness of his approach, the many new insights and suggestions about the tensions between the holders of traditional doctrines and newer challenges. Beiser’s writing is clear, and the issues are carefully presented and analyzed. One of the central themes is the mistake of equating “rationalism with the critique or rejection of religion” (15), of identifying enlightenment with secularization (14). The appeals to reason often emerge from within orthodox religion, whose defenders were trying to cope with their own internal tensions. “Once we consider the Cambridge Platonists’ early reaction to predestination, it becomes clear that it was not Hobbes but Calvin who first posed the danger of atheism for them. For it was Calvin’s theology, and not Hobbes’s materialism, that inspired the fear of God that [End Page 138] they regarded as the source of atheism. In the eyes of the Cambridge Platonists, Hobbes’s materialism was only a false remedy for that fear...” (147). A similar point is made later: “the foundations of a rational theology” in Whichcote “did not arise from any need to combat a creeping Hobbesianism. Rather, it grew up from the inner struggles and torments of the Protestant soul” (165).Equally significant is Beiser’s analysis of enthusiasm, the appeals to divine inspiration rather than to reason or evidence: “We should be aware of accepting the contemporary caricature of the enthusiasts, which portrayed them as zealous and ignorant anti–intellectuals with no cogent or coherent philosophical position of their own” (187). His analysis of the enthusiasts stresses the epistemological nature of their position, rather than the usual theological, ethical, or political dimensions (193). He insists that “enthusiasm is essentially a philosophical concept. Historically, it arose as a response to the problem of the sources and criteria of religious knowledge” (187). The search for criteria is a pervasive feature of Beiser’s study: Luther’s and Calvin’s efforts to draw the boundary between faith and reason (24); Richard Hooker’s failure to “provide an epistemological foundation for his theory of natural law” (67); the need for a criterion to distinguish genuine from false revelation... (shrink)

-/- This unique book develops an operational approach to preference and rationality as the author employs operators over binary relations to capture the concept of rationality. -/- A preference is a basis of individual behavior and social judgment and is mathematically regarded as a binary relation on the set of alternatives. Traditionally, an individual/social preference is assumed to satisfy completeness and transitivity. However, each of the two conditions is often considered to be too demanding; and then, weaker rationality conditions are (...) introduced by researchers. This book argues that the preference rationality conditions can be captured mathematically by “operators,” which are mappings from the set of operators to itself. This operational approach nests traditional concepts in individual/social decision theory and clarifies the underlying formal structure of preference rationality. -/- The author also applies his approach to welfare economics. The core problem of ‘new welfare economics,’ developed by Kaldor, Hicks, and Samuelson, is the rationality of social preference. In this book the author translates the social criteria proposed by those three economists into operational forms, which provide new insights into welfare economics extending beyond ‘new welfare economics.’ . (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between rationality and happiness from ancient Greek philosophy to early Latin medieval philosophy. What connection is there between human rationality and happiness? This issue was uppermost in the minds of the Ancient Greek philosophers and continued to be of importance during the entire early medieval period. Starting with theSocrates of Plato's early dialogues, who is regarded as having initiated the eudaimonistic ethical tradition, the present volume looks at Plato, Aristotle, the Skeptics, Seneca [Stoicism], Epicurus, Plotinus (...) [neo-Platonism], Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and ends with Abelard, the final major figure in early medieval philosophy. Special efforts are made to reveal and trace the continuity and development of the views on rationality and happiness among these major thinkers within this period. The book's approach is historical, but the topics it treats are relevant to many discussions pursued in contemporary philosophical circles. Specifically, the book aims to make two major contributions to the ongoing development of virtue ethics. First, contemporary virtue ethics often draws distinctions between ancient Greek ethics and modern moral philosophy [mainly utilitarianism and Kantianism], and seeks to model ethics on ancient ethics. In doing so, however, contemporary virtue ethics often ignores the transition from Greek ethics to the early Latin medieval tradition. Second, contemporary virtue-based ethics, in its efforts to seek insights from ancient ethics, centers on virtue. In contrast, in ancient and medieval ethics, virtue is pursued for the sake of happiness [eudaimonia], and virtue is conceived as excellence of rationality. Hence, the relationship between rationality and happiness provides the framework for ethical inquiry within which the discussion of virtue takes place. Contributors: JULIA ANNAS, RICHARD BETT, JORGE J.E. GRACIA, BRAD INWOOD, WILLIAM MANN, JOHN MARENBON, GARETH B. MATTHEWS, MARK L. McPHERRAN, DONALD MORRISON, C.C.W. TAYLOR, JONATHAN SANFORD, JIYUAN YU. Jiyuan Yu is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Jorge J. E. Gracia is Samuel P. Capen Chair and SUNY Distinguised Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo. (shrink)

The normativity of so-called “coherence” or “structural” requirements of rationality has been hotly debated in recent years. However, relatively little has been said about the nature of structural rationality, or what makes a set of attitudes structurally irrational, if structural rationality is not ultimately a matter of responding correctly to reasons. This paper develops a novel account of incoherence (or structural irrationality), critically examining Alex Worsnip’s recent account. It first argues that Worsnip’s account both over-generates and under-generates incoherent patterns of (...) attitudes, and then proposes an alternative that both avoids these problems and captures a crucial insight behind Worsnip’s account. According to this account, a set of attitudes is incoherent just in case having all of the attitudes in that set is incompatible with reacting to a question in a way that one is, in virtue of having the attitudes, committed to. (shrink)

In their survey of empirical research based on rational choice theory, Don Green and Ian Shapiro point to a list of methodological deficiencies or ?pathologies.? The main problem with Green and Shapiro's list lies in the standards they use to evaluate the achievements of rational choice theory. These standards are derived from a view of empirical research that is deeply questionable and, in the stated form, inconsistent with both standard insights in contemporary philosophy of science and the (...) established practice in the most successful empirical sciences. (shrink)

The critics of rational choice theory frequently claim that RCT is self-defeating in the sense that agents who abide by RCT’s prescriptions are less successful in satisfying their preferences than they would be if they abided by some normative theory of choice other than RCT. In this paper, I combine insights from philosophy of action, philosophy of mind and the normative foundations of RCT to rebut this often-made criticism. I then explicate the implications of my thesis for the (...) wider philosophical debate concerning the normativity of RCT for both ideal agents who can form and revise their intentions instantly without cognitive costs and real-life agents who have limited control over the formation and the dynamics of their own intentions. (shrink)

Many epistemologists treat rationality and justification as the same thing. Those who don’t lack detailed accounts of the difference, leading their opponents to suspect that the distinction is an ad hoc attempt to safeguard their theories of justification. In this paper, I offer a new and detailed account of the distinction. The account is inspired by no particular views in epistemology, but rather by insights from the literature on reasons and rationality outside of epistemology. Specifically, it turns on a (...) version of the familiar distinction in meta-ethics between possessing apparent normative reasons (which may be merely apparent) and possessing objective normative reasons. The paper proceeds as follows. In §1, I discuss the history of indifference to the distinction between rationality and justification in epistemology and the striking contrast with meta-ethics. I introduced the distinction between apparent reasons and possessed objective reasons in §2 and provide a deeper basis for it in §3. I explain how the ideas extend to epistemology in §4 and explore the upshots for some central issues in §5. (shrink)

Theorists from John Stuart Mill to Robert Nozick have argued that citizens can gain insight into the demands of justice by experimenting with diverse forms of political life. I consider the rationa...

This paper is a non-technical paper on the kinematics of rational decision-making. lt focuses upon Williams’s Regret argument. The Argument is directed against injunction implicit in standard decision theory and formulated by Rawls: a rational agent is always ready to act so that she need never blame herself “no matter how things finally transpire”. The purpose of this paper is to offer new insights into theweaknesses of the Argument, introducing new considerations regarding coherence of the self of (...) the would-be repentant. The opaqueness of one’s future preference-structure is argued at length, stressing that standard decision theory cannot possibly allow that the decision tree is not comprehended at the time of making one’s choice, even if it is about one’s final end. (shrink)

This book uses the psychological literature on rationality to weigh in on the recent debate between virtue epistemologists and epistemic situationists. It argues that both sides have misconstrued the literature and that an interactionist framework is needed to square epistemic theory with empirical facts about reasoning and inference. The explosion of empirical literature on human rationality has led to seismic shifts across a multitude of academic disciplines. This book considers its implications for epistemology. In particular, it critically evaluates the treatment (...) of the rationality literature within the recent controversy between virtue epistemologists, who attempt to ground knowledge in stable epistemic virtues, and epistemic situationists, who claim that such a project is doomed by empirical evidence of widespread irrationality. It links this foundational controversy to two of the most important debates in psychology: the Rationality Wars and the person-situation debate. The book argues that both virtue theorists and epistemic situationists have misunderstood the implications of these debates, leading them to focus exclusively on personal dispositions and situational factors as two independent sources of epistemic success, failure, and improvement. A more accurate reading of the empirical literature implies that interactions between epistemic agents and their social, informational, and institutional environments are the fundamental drivers of both rational and irrational behaviour. An interactionist framework motivated by this insight conceives of epistemic virtues and vices as both responsive to and responsible for the environments in which they're manifested and cultivated. The central aim of this book is to present and defend this novel type of virtue epistemology. Rationality in Context will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of psychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology. (shrink)

Subjects experiencing thought insertion disown thoughts they are introspectively aware of. According to what I call “the rationality hypothesis”, thought-insertion reports are not merely intelligible, but also express, or potentially express, fully rational judgments in the light of highly disruptive experience. I argue that the hypothesis is ethically and theoretically motivated, and provides two insights into the philosophical significance of reports by subjects with schizophrenia. First, the reports can be seen as evidence that rational judgments of ownership (...) of a thought prioritize agency awareness over introspective awareness of it. This point fits with an integrative account of thought insertion at the personal and mechanistic levels. Second, rational and competent uses of the first person purely based on introspection do not necessarily involve a full-fledged first-person perspective over one’s thoughts. This suggests that agency awareness, and not introspection as such, is primarily involved in determining the reference of the first person featuring in the judgments. (shrink)

This article offers a historical inquiry into behaviorism and its impact on standard of judgement concerning education policies. Drawing from Aldous Huxley’s reservation towards behaviorism as a scientific movement that naturalizes the role of control in human affairs, the paper maps the impact of behaviorism on economics of education. By tracing the influence of behaviorism in both rational (human capital theory) and quasi-rational (behavioral insight) economics, we draw attention to the activity of knowledge-making that describes and prescribes agency. (...) The paper demonstrates how policy instruments and outcomes are intimately linked to assumptions about personhood, and in the case of behavioral insight, they contribute to the scope of decision-making entrusted to government and business. Utilizing a genealogical approach, the paper invites ethical reflections on the long-term implications of behavioral economics in light of automation. (shrink)

The claim that even in 1543 the Copernican theory was objectively superior to the Ptolemaic theory is explained and defended. The question is then raised concerning the relevance of this insight for our understanding of the rationality of the Copernican revolution. It is proposed that (a) the decision to reject the Ptolemaic theory first became clearly rational early in the 17th century as a result of Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus, and (b) the decision to accept the (...) Copernican theory only became clearly rational when Newtonian gravitational theory provided reasonable physical grounds for rejecting the Tychonic theory towards the end of the 17th century. (shrink)

It is time to transcend the arid debate between rationality and ir-, a-, or non-rationality as our basic assumption about human agency.1 There are powerful arguments and extensive evidence both for and against the rationality assumption, with heavily defended entrenchments on both sides. Managers and management scholars continually make at least tacit assumptions about how they expect others to behave. If only we could have in both theory and practice the coherence and precision of rational models as well as (...) the descriptive richness of ‘behavioural’ approaches. The message of this paper is that perhaps we can. The advent of consciousness studies and, more recently, neuroeconomics would seem to indicate the way forward to transcend the opposition in some kind of synthesis. This paper investigates rationality in the light of Daniel Dennett’s thesis that it is at the core of all intentionality that is the defining characteristic of mental phenomena. Neuroeconomics seeks to enhance understanding of agency by investigating new insights on the materialist basis of mental phenomenology in the neurophysiology of the brain and nervous system. Experimental evidence mapping intentional states onto neurophysiological states is emerging, some researchers even claiming to have found a ‘neurophysiological utility function’. Dennett closes the circuit by locating the existence of brain-hardware supporting satisficing intentional choice and action as the output of evolutionary ‘design’. The dichotomy is transcended: satisficing models (of which normative optimising rational choice models are a reasonable abstraction) are a good basis both for statistical prediction of the behaviour of large numbers, and as the first base on which to construct and refine a model of expectation-formation about particular types of agent and then of individual agents. Using both the old (‘external’) and the new (sub-individual) behaviourism as well as work on unpacking the abstract notion of rationality, we can concretise optimising rational choice both generally, for epistemic theory-building purposes, and specifically for understanding and deploying models of managerial agency. Such models will need to incorporate emotion with cognition in an integrated approach. (shrink)

In the foreground of Father Lonergan's analysis of the cognitional process are insight and the heuristic structures it employs. A close study of paradigms of insight exhibits mental acts apprehending intelligibilities logically distinct from, though psychologically conveyed by sense data and images. Because these intelligibilities, e.g., in contemporary physics, bear witness to entities which are unimaginable, knowing is not merely looking. Knowing involves entertaining intelligible meanings and reflecting on them, and though it exists, for men at least, within the boundaries (...) of sensible experience, knowing in its primary activity as insight goes beyond the empirical presentations to grasp intelligible meanings and to judge reflectively their truth or falsity. When judging, a rational self-consciousness affirms a proposition, i.e., an intelligible meaning, in view of its sufficient reason or grounds. In this sense affirmative judgment renders the conditioned "virtually unconditioned" by linking it up with its conditions, as structures immanent and operative within the cognitional process effectuate this linkage of the conditioned with its conditions. These structures, which Father Lonergan supposes he can express as rules for the construction of situations which give rise to insight so that method and not genius suffices to gain truth, are held to be constitutive of the acts of insight and understanding. Accordingly, the positive content of Insight is summed up in the slogan: "Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding". (shrink)

We must change our beliefs, and change them in particular ways, in response to new information. But not all changes are created equal: some are rational changes, some not. The Problem of Epistemic Change is the problem of specifying the rational constraints on how the epistemic state of an agent ought to change in the face of new information. This dissertation is about the philosophical and logical investigation of rational belief change. I start by arguing that the (...) familiar foundations---coherence distinction from static epistemology does not adequately carve up the logical space of theories of epistemic change. It is better to think of theories as being loosely ordered along a continuum from more to less foundational. The ordering, however, is "clumpy" in the sense that there are large regions in the ordering which remain unexplored. I then present and develop GDEC which is a new foundations model of belief revision that fills a gap in this ordering of theories of epistemic change. The key insight in GDEC is that belief that...is ambiguous between the attitudes of accept that...and expect that... GDEC respects the difference and how it matters for epistemic change. I show that GDEC is a genuine competitor to the AGM theory of belief revision in the sense that the two approaches are incompatible. The remainder of the dissertation is devoted to exploring the logical dynamics of GDEC and the models I develop here which extend it by applying them to a series of richer epistemic environments. I show how puzzles and paradoxes which confound other theories of belief revision are solved in a unified way by GDEC and its extensions. In particular, I give solutions to Moore's Paradox, Fuhrmann's Impossibility Theorem, the Reduction Problem of Epistemic Conditionals, and the Gardenfors Impossibility Theorem. (shrink)

In this paper, the author develops an instrument for the rational reconstruction of argumentation in which a judicial decision is justified by referring to the consequences in relation to the purpose of the rule. The instrument is developed by integrating insights from legal theory and legal philosophy about the function and use of arguments from consequences in relation to the purpose of a rule into a pragma-dialectical framework. Then, by applying the instrument to the analysis of examples from (...) legal practice, it is demonstrated that the instrument can offer a heuristic and critical tool for the analysis and evaluation of legal argumentation that can ‘bridge’ the gap between more abstract discussions of forms of legal argumentation on the one hand, and legal arguments as they occur in actual legal practice on the other hand. (shrink)