Reason And Rationality

Download or read book Reason and Rationality written by Jon Elster and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's most important political philosophers, Jon Elster is a leading thinker on reason and rationality and their roles in politics and public life. In this short book, he crystallizes and advances his work, bridging the gap between philosophers who use the idea of reason to assess human behavior from a normative point of view and social scientists who use the idea of rationality to explain behavior. In place of these approaches, Elster proposes a unified conceptual framework for the study of behavior. Drawing on classical moralists as well as modern scholarship, and using a wealth of historical and contemporary illustrations, Reason and Rationality marks a new development in Elster's thinking while at the same time providing a brief, elegant, and accessible introduction to his work.

Download or read book Reason and Rationality written by Maria Cristina Amoretti and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reason and rationality represent crucial elements of the self-image of human beings and have unquestionably been among the most debated issues in Western philosophy, dating from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, and to the present day. Many words and thoughts have already been spent trying to define the nature and standards of reason and rationality, what they could or ought to be, and under what conditions something can be said to be rational. This volume focuses instead on the relationships of reason and rationality to some relevant specific topics, i.e., science, knowledge, gender, politics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, language, logic, and metaphysics, trying to uncover and clarify both the connections and differences in their various characterisations and uses.

Download or read book Reasons Without Persons written by Brian Hedden and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Hedden defends a radical view about rationality, personal identity, and time. He argues that what it is rational to do should not depend on your past beliefs or actions, which are not part of your current perspective on the world. His impersonal approach holds that what rationality demands of you is solely determined by your evidence.

Download or read book In Praise of Reason written by Michael P. Lynch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-03-16 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited defense of the relevance of reason for an era of popular skepticism over such matters as climate change, vaccines, and evolution. Why does reason matter, if (as many people seem to think) in the end everything comes down to blind faith or gut instinct? Why not just go with what you believe even if it contradicts the evidence? Why bother with rational explanation when name-calling, manipulation, and force are so much more effective in our current cultural and political landscape? Michael Lynch's In Praise of Reason offers a spirited defense of reason and rationality in an era of widespread skepticism—when, for example, people reject scientific evidence about such matters as evolution, climate change, and vaccines when it doesn't jibe with their beliefs and opinions. In recent years, skepticism about the practical value of reason has emerged even within the scientific academy. Many philosophers and psychologists claim that the reasons we give for our most deeply held views are often little more than rationalizations of our prior convictions. In Praise of Reason gives us a counterargument. Although skeptical questions about reason have a deep and interesting history, they can be answered. In particular, appeals to scientific principles of rationality are part of the essential common currency of any civil democratic society. The idea that everything is arbitrary—that reason has no more weight than blind faith—undermines a key principle of a civil society: that we owe our fellow citizens explanations for what we do. Reason matters—not just for the noble ideal of truth, but for the everyday world in which we live.

Download or read book Rationality written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contending that only a normative theory of rationality can be adequate to the complexities of the subject, this book explains and defends the view that rationality consists of the intelligent pursuit of appropriate objectives. Rescher considers the mechanics, rationale, and rewards of reason, and argues that social scientists who want to present a theory of rationality while avoiding the vexing complexities of normative deliberations must amend their perspective of the rational enterprise.

Download or read book Logic, Reasoning, and Rationality written by Erik Weber and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference (LRR10) in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far as it is based on (classical) logic. Later, this belief came under attack and logic was deemed inadequate to explicate actual cases of human reasoning. Today, there is a growing interest in reconnecting logic, reasoning and rationality. A central motor for this change was the development of non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks. The book contains contributions in various non-classical formal frameworks, case studies that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns, and studies of the philosophical implications for our understanding of the notions of rationality.

Download or read book Media of Reason written by Matthias Vogel and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matthias Vogel challenges the belief, dominant in contemporary philosophy, that reason is determined solely by our discursive, linguistic abilities as communicative beings. In his view, the medium of language is not the only force of reason. Music, art, and other nonlinguistic forms of communication and understanding are also significant. Introducing an expansive theory of mind that accounts for highly sophisticated, penetrative media, Vogel advances a novel conception of rationality while freeing philosophy from its exclusive attachment to linguistics. Vogel's media of reason treats all kinds of understanding and thought, propositional and nonpropositional, as important to the processes and production of knowledge and thinking. By developing an account of rationality grounded in a new conception of media, he raises the profile of the prelinguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions of rationality and advances the Enlightenment project, buffering it against the postmodern critique that the movement fails to appreciate aesthetic experience. Guided by the work of Jürgen Habermas, Donald Davidson, and a range of media theorists, including Marshall McLuhan, Vogel rebuilds, if he does not remake, the relationship among various forms of media—books, movies, newspapers, the Internet, and television—while offering an original and exciting contribution to media theory.