Re-visions of rationality?

The appeal of simple algorithms that take account of both the constraints of human cognitive capacity and the structure of environments has been an enduring theme in cognitive science. A novel version of such a boundedly rational perspective views the mind as containing an 'adaptive toolbox' of specialized cognitive heuristics suited to different problems. Although intuitively appealing, when this version was proposed, empirical evidence for the use of such heuristics was scant. I argue that in the light of empirical studies carried out since then, it is time this 'vision of rationality' was revised. An alternative view based on integrative models rather than collections of heuristics is proposed.     

How “rational” is “rationality”?

Abstract

By taking serious a remark once made by Paul Bernays, namely that an account of the nature of rationality should begin with concept-formation, this article sets out to uncover both the restrictive and the expansive boundaries of rationality. In order to do this some implications of the perennial philosophical problem of the “coherence of irreducibles” will be related to the acknowledgement of primitive terms and of their indefinability. Some critical remarks will be articulated in connection with an over-estimation of rationality - concerning the influence of Kant’s view of human understanding as the formal law-giver of nature (the supposedly “rational structure of the world”), and the apparently innocent (subjectivist) habit to refer to experiential entities as ‘objects’. The other side of the coin will be highlighted with reference to those kinds of knowledge transcending the limits of concept-formation - culminating in formulating the four most basic idea-statements philosophy can articulate about the universe. What is found “in-between” these (restrictive) and (expansive) boundaries of rationality will then briefly be placed within the contours of a threefold perspective on the self-insufficiency of logicality - as merely one amongst many more dimensions conditioning human life. Although the meaning of the most basic logical principles - such as the logical principles of identity, non-contradiction and sufficient reason - will surface in our analysis, exploring some of the complex issues in this respect, such as the relationship between thought and language, will not be analysed. The important role of solidarity - as the basis of critique - will be explained and related both to the role of immanent criticism in rational conversation and the importance of acknowledging what is designated as the principle of the excluded antinomy (which in an ontic sense underlies the logical principle of non-contradiction). The last section of our discussion will succinctly illuminate the proper place of the inevitable trust we ought to have in rationality - while implicitly warning against the rationalistic over-estimation of it (its degeneration into a rationalist “faith in reason”). Our intention is to enhance an awareness of the reality that rationality is embedded in and borders on givens which are not open to further “rational” exploration - givens that both condition (in a constitutive sense) and transcend the limits of conceptual knowledge. Some of the distinctions and insights operative in our analysis are explained in Strauss 2000 and 2003. Yet, most of the systematic perspectives found in this analysis of rationality are only developed in this article for the first time. Since a different study is required to discuss related problems and results found within cognitive science, it cannot be discussed within one article.     

Editors’ introduction: social dynamics and collective rationality

We provide a brief introduction to this special issue on social dynamics and collective rationality, and summarize the gist of the papers collected therein.     

How (far) can rationality be naturalized?

The paper shows why and how an empirical study of fast-and-frugal heuristics can provide norms of good reasoning, and thus how (and how far) rationality can be naturalized. We explain the heuristics that humans often rely on in solving problems, for example, choosing investment strategies or apartments, placing bets in sports, or making library searches. We then show that heuristics can lead to judgments that are as accurate as or even more accurate than strategies that use more information and computation, including optimization methods. A standard way to defend the use of heuristics is by reference to accuracy-effort trade-offs. We take a different route, emphasizing ecological rationality (the relationship between cognitive heuristics and environment), and argue that in uncertain environments, more information and computation are not always better (the ??less-can-be-more?? doctrine). The resulting naturalism about rationality is thus normative because it not only describes what heuristics people use, but also in which specific environments one should rely on a heuristic in order to make better inferences. While we desist from claiming that the scope of ecological rationality is unlimited, we think it is of wide practical use.     

Imagining human enhancement: whose future,which rationality?

This article critically evaluates bettering human life. Because this involves lives that do not exist yet, the article investigates human eugenics and enhancement through the social prism of ‘the imaginary’ (defined ‘as a set of assumptions and concepts for thinking and speaking about human enhancement and its future direction’) [1]. “Exploring basic assumptions underlying the idea of human enhancement” investigates underlying assumptions and claims for human enhancement. Firstly, human eugenics and enhancement entangles a factual as well as a normative claim about what improvement/betterment maybe constitutive of. Secondly, claims about what a better life is, is often a future orientated claim about whether certain kinds of life that do not exist yet should ever exist. Moral images of thought are introduced and how they work to make normative judgments about lives that do not exist. This implicates the moral problem of difference, where an image of a ‘better’ life—classically expressed in eugenics as a ‘superior’ and/or ‘normal’ life—necessarily entails inferiority and/or deviance from a norm. “Moral imagination in contemporary fiction and the history of old eugenics”, introduces moral images in history of eugenics and demonstrates how examples fall foul of the problem. “The new (liberal) eugenics and the moral image of therapy” examines progress in contemporary debates, the move from authoritarian to non-authoritarian eugenics (human enhancement), and how, to some extent, this has solved the problem of difference, through liberal defence of personal choice. “The heart of the eugenic issue” suggests that personal choice in liberal non-authoritarian eugenics is not immune to basic drive behind all eugenic arguments; desire as lack which is expressed as the continual dissatisfaction of not having our future expectations met.

Bounded rationality and cognitive development: Upper limits on growth?

Piaget's characterization of formal operational thought and human judgment psychologists' model of bounded rationality are considered as two conflicting models dealing with the same domain of interest: the nature and limits of mature thought. Piaget's suggestion that the formal operational thinker brings the skills of hypothetico-deductive logic to deal adequately with environmental complexity is in sharp contrast with judgment psychologists' evidence that information-processing limitations and faulty reasoning leave decision makers poorly equipped to deal with their decision environments. While the two approaches have generated conflicting models, a look at the respective data bases demonstrates their complementarity. Considered together, the literatures in formal operations and bounded rationality make a formidable contribution to understanding the capacities and limits of mature cognition.     

Local and normative rationality of science: The ‘content of discovery’ rehabilitated

The recent turn to the context of discovery and other postmodernist developments in the philosophy of science have undermined the idea of a universal rationality of science. This parallels the fate of the classical dream of a logic of discovery. Still, justificational questions have remained as a distinct perspective, though comprising both consequential and generative justification — an insight delayed by certain confusions about the (original) context distinction. An examination of one particular heuristic strategy shows its local rationality; even as an efficient procedure of hypothesis generation, it carries probative weight. It will be explored in which respects such a strategy can be normative or contain normative elements.Parts of this paper were published, in summary fashion, in Kirschenmann (1989).     

Rationality,reasoning and rules: reflections on Broome’s rationality through reasoning

Philosophical Studies - The paper provides a critical discussion of some key aspects of John Broome’s theories of rationality, reasoning and the relations between them.     

Keep ‘hoping’ for rationality: a solution to the backward induction paradox

We formalise a notion of dynamic rationality in terms of a logic of conditional beliefs on (doxastic) plausibility models. Similarly to other epistemic statements (e.g. negations of Moore sentences and of Muddy Children announcements), dynamic rationality changes its meaning after every act of learning, and it may become true after players learn it is false. Applying this to extensive games, we “simulate” the play of a game as a succession of dynamic updates of the original plausibility model: the epistemic situation when a given node is reached can be thought of as the result of a joint act of learning (via public announcements) that the node is reached. We then use the notion of “stable belief”, i.e. belief that is preserved during the play of the game, in order to give an epistemic condition for backward induction: rationality and common knowledge of stable belief in rationality. This condition is weaker than Aumann’s and compatible with the implicit assumptions (the “epistemic openness of the future”) underlying Stalnaker’s criticism of Aumann’s proof. The “dynamic” nature of our concept of rationality explains why our condition avoids the apparent circularity of the “backward induction paradox”: it is consistent to (continue to) believe in a player’s rationality after updating with his irrationality.     

Ecological rationality or nested sets? Individual differences in cognitive processing predict Bayesian reasoning

The presentation of a Bayesian inference problem in terms of natural frequencies rather than probabilities has been shown to enhance performance. The effect of individual differences in cognitive processing on Bayesian reasoning has rarely been studied, despite enabling us to test process-oriented variants of the two main accounts of the facilitative effect of natural frequencies: The ecological rationality account (ERA), which postulates an evolutionarily shaped ease of natural frequency automatic processing, and the nested sets account (NSA), which posits analytical processing of nested sets. In two experiments, we found that cognitive reflection abilities predicted normative performance equally well in tasks featuring whole and arbitrarily parsed objects (Experiment 1) and that cognitive abilities and thinking dispositions (analytical vs. intuitive) predicted performance with single-event probabilities, as well as natural frequencies (Experiment 2). Since these individual differences indicate that analytical processing improves Bayesian reasoning, our findings provide stronger support for the NSA than for the ERA.     

Living in the “space of reasons”: The “rationality debate” revisited

Two questions are central to the “rationality debate” in the philosophy of social science. First, should we acknowledge differences in basic norms of epistemic and agential rationality, or in the content of perceptual experience, as the “best explanation” of radical differences in belief and practice? Second, can genuine understanding be achieved between cultures and research traditions that so differ in their beliefs and practices? I survey a number of responses to these questions, and suggest that one of these, “dialogical optimism”, while attractive, is in need of further clarification. Such clarification may be forthcoming if we attend to recent work by John McDowell. McDowell claims that perceptual experience, as our primary mode of epistemic access to the world, must be located within what Sellars termed the “space of reasons” if we are to make sense of our conception of ourselves as thinking creatures. I develop a reading of this claim in terms of a fundamental duality in human perceptual experience, and use this conception of experience to illuminate the dialogical optimist strategy in the rationality debate.     

Rationality of belief or: why savage’s axioms are neither necessary nor sufficient for rationality

Economic theory reduces the concept of rationality to internal consistency. As far as beliefs are concerned, rationality is equated with having a prior belief over a ??Grand State Space??, describing all possible sources of uncertainties. We argue that this notion is too weak in some senses and too strong in others. It is too weak because it does not distinguish between rational and irrational beliefs. Relatedly, the Bayesian approach, when applied to the Grand State Space, is inherently incapable of describing the formation of prior beliefs. On the other hand, this notion of rationality is too strong because there are many situations in which there is not sufficient information for an individual to generate a Bayesian prior. It follows that the Bayesian approach is neither sufficient not necessary for the rationality of beliefs.     

Difference and presence: Derrida and Husserl’s phenomenology of language,time, history,and scientific rationality

Continental Philosophy Review - This article seeks to reconstruct and critically extend Jacques Derrida’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Derrida’s...