Radical Rationalization Accommodates Rampant

According to a classic position in analytic philosophy of mind, we must interpret agents as largely rational in order to be able to attribute intentional mental states to them. However, adopting this position requires clarifying in what way and by which criteria agents can still be irrational. In this paper I will offer one such criterion. More specifically, I argue that the kind of rationality methodologically required by intentional interpretation is to be specified in terms of psychological efficacy. Thereby, this notion can be distinguished from a more commonly used notion of rationality and hence cannot be shown to be undermined by the potential prevalence of a corresponding kind of irrationality.

Philosophy Research Archives, 1981

2018

This book contributes to the developing dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences. It focuses on a central issue in both fields, i.e. the nature and the limitations of the rationality of beliefs and action. The development of cognitive science is one of the most important and fascinating intellectual advances of recent decades, and social scientists are paying increasing attention to the findings of this new branch of science that forces us to consider many classical issues related to epistemology and philosophy of action in a new light. Analysis of the concept of rationality is a leitmotiv in the history of the social sciences and has involved endless disputes. Since it is difficult to give a precise definition of this concept, and there is a lack of agreement about its meaning, it is possible to say that there is a ‘mystery of rationality’. What is it to be rational? Is rationality merely instrumental or does it also involve the endorsement of values, i.e. the choice of goals? Should we consider rationality to be a normative principle or a descriptive one? Can rationality be only Cartesian or can it also be argumentative? Is rationality a conscious skill or a partly tacit one? This book, which has been written by an outstanding collection of authors, including both philosophers and social scientists, tries to make a useful contribution to the debates on these problems and shed some light on the mystery of rationality. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field.

2013

A version of the rationalist internalist argument, employing a pro tanto reading of the term "normative reason", is often criticized due to its conception of rationality. It is said that the condition of rationality is insufficient to secure the necessary relation between the moral judgement and the respective motivation to act. I claim that such a criticism is based on the false supposition that rationality is to be identified with normal mental functioning. It is shown that for the rationalist internalists rationality does and should rather amount to inner psychological coherence, and that the respective conception of irrationality can account for all the purported counterexamples to the motivational internalism. In addition, I pinpoint that "full rationality" is neither an intuitive notion nor a necessary condition for the rationalist internalism to hold, therefore, a line of criticism employing the notion misses the target.

Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 2020

The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 2004

2003

Please cite published version.

1984

This paper reviews the main research in the' areaof human reasoning and rational thinking to determine if man is either an "innately inefficient thinking machine" or if man's irrationality is "rooted in basic human nature," as Ellis (1976) suggests. The paper focuses on the work of two*English theorists, Mason and Johnson-Laird, and two American psychologists, Tversky and Kahneman. Emphasis-is placed on implications for improving the ability to think and reason in a rational-and logical fashion. A number of-experiments are reviewed, dealinq with decision makinge.problem'solving, psychotherapy, creativity, risk, prediction, generalization, and rational emotivi therapy. Some generalconclusions are drawn, suggesting that lost people tend to think simplistically, to make choices without considering allthe variables and all of the information, and ignore long term goals. (JAC)

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2005

It is often taken for granted in standard theories of interpretation that there cannot be intentionality without rationality. According to the background argument, a system can be interpreted as having irrational beliefs only against a general background of rationality. Starting from the widespread assumption that delusions can be reasonably described as irrational beliefs, I argue here that the background argument fails to account for their intentional description