A measure of good and bad is internal to something falling under it when that thing falls under the measure in virtue of what it is. The concept of an internal standard has broad application. Compare the external breed standards arbitrarily imposed at a dog show with the internal standards of health at work in the veterinarian's office. This paper is about practical standards, measures of acting well and badly, and so measures deployed in deliberation and choice. More specifically, it (...) is about the attempt to explain the unconditional validity of certain norms (say, of justice and prudence) by showing them to be internal to our agency and the causality it involves. This is constitutivism. Its most prominent incarnations share a set of assumptions about the nature of agency and our knowledge of it: conceptualism, formalism and absolutism. This essay investigates the merits and viability of rejecting all of them while still seeking the ground of practical normativity in what we are, in our fundamental activity. (shrink)

Modern societies are shaped to a significant extent by socially rational institutions, arrangements, and technologies. A purely functional understanding of these rationalized structures eliminates the element of meaning from social life. Ellul, Heidegger and the Frankfurt School focused on this impoverishment and associate it with the spread of technology. But recent technology studies offer a different perspective which can be joined to the formulation of the social critique in the writings of Herbert Marcuse.

The concept of rule permeates Foucault’s methodological formulations concerning the object of his investigation, but he offers few explicit discussions of the epistemological status of such rules. My claim is that the explication of Foucauldian rules in terms of Wittgensteinian criteria clarifies their epistemological status, and thereby enables one to formulate a novel conception of the historical a priori, one that is defensible against recurrent objections which charge that Foucault’s theoretical reflections confuse concepts that are distinct. Foucault and Wittgenstein are (...) best seen as articulating a sense of intelligibility in which forms are integral to content and meaning is not abstracted from social practices. ‘Form of life’ increases the conceptual cogency of ‘historical a priori,’ whereas the latter delineates what it would be like to take the former’s historicity seriously. (shrink)

This article addresses major arguments in the controversy about the “rationality” of moral behavior: can moral behavior be explained by rational choice theory (RCT)? The two positions discussed are the incentives thesis (norms are incentives as any other costs and benefits) and the autonomy thesis claiming that moral behavior has nothing to do with utility. The article analyses arguments for the autonomy thesis by J. Elster, A. Etzioni, and J. G. March and J. P. Olsen. Finally, the general claim (...) is discussed whether norm following and norm emergence are utility maximizing. The conclusion is that the autonomy thesis is not tenable if one applies a wide subjectivist, social psychological version of RCT that includes the assumption of “bounded rationality.” The autonomy thesis is only compatible with a narrow version of RCT that excludes internal outcomes and that refers to norms that do not have external outcomes. It is argued that such a narrow version is not capable of explaining many forms of behavior social scientists are interested in. (shrink)

Contemporary neo-Aristotelianism attempts to ground normative constraints on action on the notion of human nature and this opens it to two main objections: Firstly, human nature seems to be too indeterminate to set constraints on action; secondly, it is unclear why knowledge of human nature should motivate agents. This essay considers the contribution that Wittgenstein’s notion of form of life can give in answering these challenges. It suggests that forms of life are not objects of analysis, but rather a (...) new philosophical method, which allows us also to investigate human volitional capacities and their normative significance for practical rationality. (shrink)

Educational Research is commonly regarded as a rational pursuit aimed at the production of objective knowledge. Researchers are expected to avoid value bias by detaching themselves from the normative conceptions of education that shape practice in schools and classrooms, and by casting themselves in the role of the impartial spectator. It is assumed that, as a rational pursuit, educational research is not directly concerned with changing practice but simply with discovering facts about it.This paper claims that it is possible to (...) construct a view of educational research as a form of rational and disciplined inquiry that does not depend on any underpinning spectator theory of knowledge. Nor, the paper claims, does it imply any underpinning foundational principles of rational action and choice. Rather it implies a form of disciplined conversation in which reasons for action are scrutinised, critiqued and modified without resort to foundational principles of rationality. Drawing particularly on the work of John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Amartya Sen, the paper casts educational research as a practical science—a form of action research—that is underpinned by a democratic conception of rationality. In doing so, it contrasts educational research, shaped by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, with research on education that is shaped by a spectator theory. (shrink)

Was Durkheim an apologist for the authoritarianism? Is the sociology founded upon his work incapable of critical perspective; and must it operate under the presumption that social agents, including sociologists themselves, are incapable of reflexivity? Certainly some have said so, but they may be wrong. In this essay, I address these questions in the light of Durkheim's revisionary sociology of morals. I elaborate on unfinished elements in Durkheim's abruptly concluded (because of his early and unexpected death) scholarship, pointing out Durkheim's (...) recognition that co-present moral spheres always exist in an organically complex society, and explaining how these co-present spheres obligate social agents to untether from any absolute moral affiliations. Ultimately, then, the argument shows how the solidarity/social-order relationship is transcended within Durkheim's sociology, even by Durkheim himself. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine some main philosophical positions taken in the admittedly multifarious discussion concerning the possibility of rational evaluation in comparing different forms of life. Most importantly, I will outline a view of rational evaluation that would be as sensitive as possible to the diversity and offerings of various cultural viewpoints.

The article aims to assess Hobbes’ methodological legacy. After a brief review of different interpretations of Hobbes relevant to the subject, I center the discussion on the reading advanced by Norberto Bobbio and the notion of three “different forms and levels of rationality”: First, Hobbes’ dichotomy-based reasoning that radically contended the Aristotelian tradition, as well as biblical hermeneutics used by medieval theologians. Second, individualism as a method for collective decision making, one that led to socalled “game theory” and (...) moral individualism (quite significant in contemporary political philosophy). Finally, the rationality of political power that imposes on Sovereignty binding rules for gaining and maintaining power.After the discussion of the three different forms and levels of rationality, the article concludes that Thomas Hobbes, instead of being primarilyre- ferred to as an advocate of autocratic regimes, should be considered, at the very beginning of the long history of rule of law, as one of the key authors of modern constitutionalism and democracy.Resumen:Después de un rápido recorrido sobre las múltiples interpretaciones del pensamiento hobbesiano, el ensayo retoma y desarrolla la lectura que de Hobbes propuso Norberto Bobbio. Con base en esta lectura, se busca evaluar el legado metodológico de Hobbes, el cual se despliega a través de distintos niveles de racionalidad: en primer lugar, el razonamiento basado en dicotomías, el cual desafió de manera contundente la tradición aristotélica, la labor de los historiadores antiguos y la hermenéutica bíblica de los teólogos medievales. En segundo lugar, el individualismo como método para tomar decisiones colectivas, lo que abrió la puerta a la así llamada “teoría de juegos” y al individualismo moral tan notable en la filosofía política contemporánea. Y finalmente, la racionalidad del poder político, que lógicamente impone sobre la soberanía ciertas reglas vinculantes para obtener y mantener el poder.En conjunto, con el análisis de las distintas formas y niveles de racionalidad se pretende respaldar la idea de que Hobbes —antes de ser identificado como un defensor de regímenes autocráticos— puede ser considerado como un autor clave para la democracia y el constitucionalismo moderno, colocado en el justo inicio de la larga historia del Estado de derecho. (shrink)

Concepts of enlightenment were developed and transmitted to modern times. From that perspective, one has to understand classic and romanticism as a kind of culmination of European enlightenment, thereby describing romanticisms as a European phenomenon. Here, our ideas of freedom, personality and governance, the concept of science, the idea of rationality and, in particular, the disciplinarily defined rationality originated. It is the Kantian perspective, by which we now look on rationality. It is the Hegelian idea of system (...) and coherence, we test our hypothesis with, It is Baumgarten’s aesthetics, and it is the way, Fichte argued about the principle consequences of liberalization in French revolution that came into our discussions about jurisdiction, personal liberty, state and governance. And it is that new idea of an expert system driven rationality that we are accustomed to, in between. This form of rationality originated at the end of the 18th century and has been transferred in its essential methodological characteristics to our time. (shrink)

Resumen La encíclica Fratelli Tutti, centrada en el ideal de la fraternidad y la amistad, introduce una importante novedad en el magisterio social: la crítica tradicional al liberalismo y al socialismo, basada en la dignidad de la persona humana, es sustituida por una confrontación con los “populismos” y “liberalismos”, centrada en la noción de “pueblo”, que enfatiza la importancia de los vínculos sociales. Detrás de la prolijidad formal, sin embargo, los tres conceptos básicos del nue vo esquema no están adecuadamente (...) definidos. La identidad mítica del pueblo, que permite distinguir entre el líder “popular” y el “populista”, escapa a todo control racional; la equiparación del liberalismo con un individualismo extremo es una simplificación cuestionable y se omite toda referencia al socialismo y a sus peligros para los derechos fundamentales. un diálogo sin prejuicios con el pensamiento liberal aportaría una importante contribución a la sociedad abierta que este documento promueve.The Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, based on the ideal of fraternity and the construction of an open society, introduces an important novelty in the social magisterium: the traditional criticism against liberalism and socialism, based on the dignity of the human person, is replaced by a confrontation with “forms of populism and liberalism”, centered on the notion of “people”, stressing the importance of social bonds. Behind the formal neatness, however, the three basic concepts of this new framework are inadequately defined. The mythical identity of the people, which allows the distinction between the “popular” leader and the “populist” one, lays beyond any rational control; the equation of liberalism with extreme individualism is an oversimplification, and socialism is fully omitted despite the danger it represents to the fundamental rights. A dialogue without prejudices with the liberal thought would represent a meaningful contribution to the open society this text promotes. (shrink)

I argue that the "why be rational?" challenge raised by John Broome and Niko Kolodny rests upon a mistake that is analogous to the mistake that H.A. Pritchard famously claimed beset the “why be moral?” challenge. The failure to locate an independent justification for obeying rational requirements should do nothing whatsoever to undermine our belief in the normativity of rationality. I suggest that we should conceive of the demand for a satisfactory vindicating explanation of the normativity of rationality (...) instead in terms of the demand for a philosophical characterisation of rationality that can do something to explain why rational requirements are the kinds of things that are, by their very nature, normative. I consider several accounts that have recently been offered – the distinctive-object account, the proper functioning account, and the subjective reasons account – and argue that none succeeds in meeting this challenge. I then sketch a new account, the “first-personal authority account”, which holds that rational requirements are what I call “standpoint-relative demands” concerning the attitudes we ought to have and form; and that complying with rational requirements is a matter of honouring our first-personal authority as agents. I suggest that the first-personal authority account does a better job of meeting the challenge. (shrink)

The notion of forms of life points to a crucial aspect of Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach that challenges an influential line in the philosophical tradition. He portrays intellectual activities in terms of a cohesion of things held together in linguistic scenes rooted in the lives of people and the facts of the world. The original inspiration with which Wittgenstein worked on this approach is still relevant today in the recent technological turn associated with AI. He attacked a conception that treated (...) human activities as material to be examined by external models of rationality. Along with other modernists such as Musil, he saw the danger of losing faith in human intellectual and moral capacities. In contrast, Wittgenstein elucidates and substantively defends an idea of forms of life in which the great normative enterprises, from science to the works of the imagination, are based on our individual capacity to take the next step from a normative authority that rests entirely with us, as agents who can claim it in the name of others, in the name of arithmetic, in the name of our native language, in the name of justice, and so on. Forms of life are the place to look to claim this authority over the mistrust we feel compelled to cultivate in our human endeavors. (shrink)

The book is exceptional because it applies the notion of foms of life to the context of human action. It provides answers to the following questions: Why do we act in a specific way? Why do we make particular decisions? Does one's form of life and language games determine our actions and decisions? Wittgenstein proposes a holistic method which enables us to give coherent answers to these questions. To answer the question of the contents of actions and decisions we have (...) to explain how we have institutionalized these actions or decisions. To this aim we shall reveal the frame within which language games are introduced and have come to function as practice and custom. The scheme of order underlying the language games is illustrated. Human actions and decisions follow particular rules. By highlighting the underlying scheme of order we may gain a perspicuous view of these rules. The aim of this book is to show that actions and decisions generate rational choice. This choice is explained by demonstrating the particular functions of the language games involved. (shrink)

Sometimes our intentions and beliefs exhibit a structure that proves us to be irrational. This dissertation is concerned with the question of whether we ought (or have at least good reason) to avoid such irrationality. The thesis defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. The argument touches upon many other topics in the theory of normativity, such as the form and the (...) content of rational standards or requirements, the preconditions of criti¬cism, and the function of reasons in deliberation and advice. Over and above an exten¬sive assessment of the problems discussed in the literature, the thesis provides a detailed defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, a novel, evidence-relative account of reasons, and an explanation of structural irrationality in terms of these accounts. (shrink)

Background: Rationing of various needed services, for example, nursing care, is inevitable due to unlimited needs and limited resources. Rationing of nursing care is considered an ethical issue since it requires judgment about potential conflicts between personal and professional values. Objectives: The present research sought to explore aspects of rationing nursing care in Iran. Research design: This study applied qualitative content analysis, a method to explore people’s perceptions of everyday life phenomena and interpret the subjective content of text data. Data (...) collection was performed through in-depth, unstructured, face-to-face interviews with open-ended questions. Participants and research context: The study population included Iranian nurses of all nursing positions, from clinical nurses to nurse managers. Purposive sampling was employed to select 15 female and 3 male nurses (11 clinical nurses, 3 supervisors, 1 matron, 1 nurse, and 2 members of the Nursing Council) working in hospitals of three cities in Iran. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by Tehran University of Medical Sciences (91D1302870). Written informed consent was also obtained from all participants. Findings: According to the participants, rationing of nursing care consisted of two categories, that is, causes of rationing and consequences of rationing. The first category comprised three subcategories, namely, patient needs and demands, routinism, and VIP patients. The three subcategories forming the second category were missed nursing care, patient dissatisfaction, and nurses’ feeling of guilt. Conclusion: Levels at which healthcare practices are rationed and clarity of the rationing are important structural considerations in the development of an equal, appropriate, and ethical healthcare system. Moreover, the procedure of rationing is critical as it not only influences people’s lives but also reflects the values that dominate in the society. Therefore, in order to minimize the negative consequences of rationing of nursing care, further studies on the ethical dimensions of this phenomenon are warranted. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the problem of philosophically justifying rationality, which inevitably takes the form of a circular argument: to define what rationality is, we must refrain from referring to its criteria, which must be rationally defined beforehand. This epistemic circle is compared to the so-called “experimenter’s regress”. The experimenter’s regress involves reasoning in which judging the correctness of obtained scientific results can only be based on the correctness of the procedure of obtaining them and judging the (...) correctness of the procedure of obtaining them can only be done by relying on the obtained results. From the perspective of social researchers of science, the experimenter’s (and the theoretician’s) regress casts a shadow on traditional theories of rationality that take science as a model of rational knowledge. The research analyzes the experimenter’s regress in the context of virtuous and vicious circles. It is shown that the experimenter’s regress is overcome by turning to external factors. These factors are proposed to be interpreted in terms of extended rationality. By analyzing the experimenter’s regress, social epistemologists consciously or unconsciously rationalize these “external” factors and enrich the concept of rationality. This allows qualifying the circle described by rationality in defining itself as virtuous and the work of the epistemologist as a progressive activity, during which both epistemology and its subject undergo qualitative changes. (shrink)

The author shows that the search for new, non-classical forms of rationality is a symptom of the crisis of systematicity in human existence. Rationalism is a worldview correspondence to systemic human existence, and the limits of rationalism coincide with the limits of systematicity. Referring to postmodern philosophy, the author proves that human existence is not limited to systematicity. The scientific scope of the general, the ratio, is inferior to other horizons – aesthetic, moral, mystical, etc. culture-building existence has (...) now declared itself as the only truly human, supersystemic being-in-freedom, whose logic is not limited to rationality. The crisis of rationality has led to an understanding of man as not needing any guidance, and the highest manifestation of his unlimited freedom is his own uncaused self-restraint. (shrink)

This paper examines the logic of conditional obligation, which originates from the works of Hansson, Lewis, and others. Some weakened forms of transitivity of the betterness relation are studied. These are quasi-transitivity, Suzumura consistency, acyclicity and the interval order condition. The first three do not change the logic. The axiomatic system is the same whether or not they are introduced. This holds true under a rule of interpretation in terms of maximality and strong maximality. The interval order condition gives (...) rise to a new axiom. Depending on the rule of interpretation, this one changes. With the rule of maximality, one obtains the principle known as disjunctive rationality. With the rule of strong maximality, one obtains the Spohn axiom (also known as the principle of rational monotony, or Lewis’ axiom CV). A completeness theorem further substantiates these observations. For interval order, this yields the finite model property and decidability of the calculus. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of rationality on the basis of two key texts by the prominent proponents of the new cartography for philosophy. These include A Manifesto for Re:emergent Philosophy by Jonardon Ganery (2016) and Comparative Philosophy without Borders edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralf Weber (2016). The both mentioned texts are imbued with the fervor of the movement for liberation from colonial intellectual servitude and epistemological injustice that does not recognize a plurality of ways of thinking. They (...) call for redefinition of the distinctive models of understanding as well as for justification of their rights to be acknowledged. A new cartography of philosophy presupposes a new atlas of rationality. The Manifesto by J. Ganery is compared with The Manifesto for Philosophy by A. Badiou. Both are calling for support for their global projects - “rebuilding of philosophy’s edifice” (Badiou) and “re:emergence of philosophy” (Ganeri). Badiou implies “an approach to the Philosophy” or “a return to the philosophy” by recognition of the four sources of the truth, which he regards as politics, love, art and science. Ganery speaks about “the plurality of ways of thinking”, about the movement for liberation from colonial intellectual dependence by applying the intercultural approach. The two philosophers acknowledge the plurality of cultural worlds. Badiou means “the philosophy of events,” while Ganery - “philosophy of a new cartography.” Badiou discovers different logics in disparate worlds that every time are submitted in specific forms, and thus he comes to the conclusion that single universal logic is impossible. Ganery is consistent and does not contradict himself by claiming plurality of rationalities, of logical systems, and thus advocates the promotion of the project for a new cartography of philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, I focus on two questions. First, what is Kant's understanding of the sense in which our faculties form a unified system? And, second, what are the implications of this for the metaphysical relationships between the faculties within this system? To consider these questions, I begin with a brief discussion of Longuenesse's groundbreaking work on the teleological unity of the understanding as the faculty for judgment. In doing so, I argue for a generalization of Longuenesse's account along two (...) dimensions. The result is a picture of our faculties as forming a teleological system—unified under the overarching aims of reason as the highest rational faculty. Then I discuss the recent debate between “additive” and “transformative” interpretations of the relationship between sensibility and the understand- ing, before proposing that we should interpret Kant as endorsing a moderate form of the “transformative” reading, which captures important elements of both the “additive” and the “transformative” account. (shrink)

We want to consider anew the question, which is recurrent along the history of philosophy, of the relationship between rationality and mathematics, by inquiring to which extent the structuration of rationality, which ensures the unity of its function under a variety of forms, could be considered as homeomorphic with that of mathematical thought, taken in its movement and made concrete in its theories. This idea, which is as old as philosophy itself, although it has not been dominant, (...) has still been present to some degree in the thought of modern science, in Descartes as well as in Kant, Poincaré or Einstein. It has been often harshly questioned, notably in the contemporaneous period, due to the failure of the logistic programme, as well as to the variety of “empirical” knowledges, and, in a general way, to the character of knowledges that show them as transitory, evolutive and mind-built. However, the analysis of scientific thought through its inventive and creative processes leads to characterize this thought as a type of rational form whose configurations can be detailed rather precisely. In this work we shall propose, first, a quick sketch of some philosophical requirements for such a research programme, among which the need for an harmonization, and even a conciliation, between the notions of rational, of intuitive grasp and of creative thought. Then we shall examine some processes of creative scientific thought bearing on the knowledge and the understanding of the world, distinct from mathematics although keeping tight relations with them. Contemporary physical theories are privileged witnesses in this respect, for in them the rational thought of phenomena makes an intrinsic use of mathematical thought, which contributes to the structuration of the formers and to the expression of their concepts. The General Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory are exemplar to this, as they directly reveal what can be called the “drag of physical thought par the mathematical form”, which makes possible to overcome the limitations of the physical knowledge previously adquired. This process is tightly related to the modalities and to the stucture of the rational thought underlying it. This is what we would like to show. (shrink)

Following up on previous results by Falmagne, this paper investigates possible mechanisms explaining how preference relations are created and how they evolve over time. We postulate a preference relation which is initially empty and becomes increasingly intricate under the influence of a random environment delivering discrete tokens of information concerning the alternatives. The framework is that of a class of real-time stochastic processes having interlinked Markov and Poisson components. Specifically, the occurence of the tokens is governed by a Poisson process, (...) while the succession of preference relations is a Markov process. In an example case, the preference relations are the various possible semiorders on the set of alternatives. Asymptotic results are obtained in the form of the limit probabilities of any semiorder. The arguments extend to a much more general situation including interval orders, biorders and partial orders. The results provide (up to a small number of parameters) complete quantitative predictions for panel data of a standard type, in which the same sample of subjects has been asked to compare the alternatives a number of times. (shrink)

The article treats as significant the formal coincidence between Kant’s presentation of the science of metaphysics in the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” chapter of the first Critique and Alexander Baumgarten’s presentation of the same in the Metaphysica. From his comments on Baumgarten in the metaphysics lectures, the article shows that for Kant metaphysics in its traditional form lacked completeness and systematic order. Kant fits completeness into his architectonic plan of a scientific metaphysics by converting Baumgartian ontology into an “analytic of (...) the understanding”; Kant achieves the systematicity by modeling a rational “idea of the form of the whole” after Baumgarten’s tree-like ordering of the special sciences of metaphysics. Thus, Kant realizes the completeness and systematicity in a theoretical presentation of the science of metaphysics that he finds lacking in Baumgarten precisely by borrowing from the latter his scheme for metaphysics. (shrink)

It is often believed that the only alternative to an idealist conception of natural phenomena excludes both the presence of objective universal forms and their progression towards higher forms as the finality of processes in the natural world. Realism regarding the universal and teleological approaches regarding processes are signs of idealism. Therefore, materialism, it would seem, must conform to a nominalist and mechanical view of nature. However, an intelligent materialist reading of idealism’s classics reveals a more complex scenario. (...) A real fact is expressed in a mystical fashion in idealism’s conceptions of objective universals and teleology. This article attempts to show such a real fact in its authentic (materialist) form. With that goal in mind, the present article discusses the notion of nature’s alienation, the distinction between abstract and concrete universals, and the concept of dialectical interaction. The natural-historical emergence of a higher form of matter’s organization assimilates, as its organs, the conditions that preceded it in time, transforming itself into an active producer of such conditions. That is the secret glimpsed but not correctly understood by idealism that a consistent materialist should not ignore. (shrink)

Economists commit a category mistake when they treat democratic governments as indebted. Monarchs can be indebted, as can individuals. In contrast, democracies can't truly be indebted. They are financial intermediaries that form a bridge between what are often willing borrowers and forced lenders. The language of public debt is an ideological language that promotes politically expressed desires and is not a scientific language that clarifies the practice of public finance. Economists have gone astray by assuming that a government is just (...) another person whose impulses toward prudent action will restrict recourse to public debt and induce rational political action. (shrink)

For many liberals, the question "Do others live rightly?" feels inappropriate. Liberalism seems to demand a follow-up question: "Who am I to judge?" Peaceful coexistence, in this view, is predicated on restraint from morally evaluating our peers. But Rahel Jaeggi sees the situation differently. Criticizing is not only valid but also useful, she argues. Moral judgment is no error; the error lies in how we go about judging. One way to judge is external, based on universal standards derived from ideas (...) about God or human nature. The other is internal, relying on standards peculiar to a given society. Both approaches have serious flaws and detractors. In On the Critique of Forms of Life, Jaeggi offers a third way, which she calls "immanent" critique. Inspired by Hegelian social philosophy and engaged with Anglo-American theorists such as John Dewey, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, immanent critique begins with the recognition that ways of life are inherently normative because they assert their own goodness and rightness. They also have a consistent purpose: to solve basic social problems and advance social goods, most of which are common across cultures. Jaeggi argues that we can judge the validity of a society's moral claims by evaluating how well the society adapts to crisis--whether it is able to overcome contradictions that arise from within and continue to fulfill its purpose. Jaeggi enlivens her ideas through concrete, contemporary examples. Against both relativistic and absolutist accounts, she shows that rational social critique is possible.--. (shrink)

Probabilistic coherence is not an absolute requirement of rationality; nevertheless, it is an ideal of rationality with substantive normative import. An idealized rational agent who avoided making implicit logical errors in forming his preferences would be coherent. In response to the challenge, recently made by epistemologists such as Foley and Plantinga, that appeals to ideal rationality render probabilism either irrelevant or implausible, I argue that idealized requirements can be normatively relevant even when the ideals are unattainable, so (...) long as they define a structure that links imperfect and perfect rationality in a way that enables us to make sense of the notion of better approximations to the ideal. I then analyze the notion of approximation to the ideal of coherence by developing a generalized theory of belief functions that allows for incoherence, and showing how such belief functions can be ordered with regard to greater or lesser coherence. (shrink)

Taking 'rationalized judgments' to be those formed by inference from other judgments, I argue against 'Extreme Determinism': the thesis that theoretical rationalization just is a kind of predetermination of 'conclusion-judgments' by 'premise-judgments'. The argument rests upon two key lemmas: firstly, that a deliberator - in this case, his/her assent to some proposition - to be predetermined (I call this the 'Openness Requirement'): secondly, that a subject's logical insight into his/her premise-judgments must enter into the explanation of any judgment s/he (...) class='Hi'>forms that is rationalized by those judgments. My contention is that, given the Openness Requirement, no version of Extreme Determinsim can allow for the role played by logical insight in the rationalization of judgment. I end by indicating briefly how this result might figure in a wider argument against any form of determinism about rationalized judgment, and by explaining why I have focused specifically upon rebutting a deterministic view of theoretical as opposed to 'practical' rationalization. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that in philosophy explanation should be replaced by description. I want to explore what this might mean in ethics. I first consider Wittgenstein and reasons to doubt that he supported a fact/value distinction as strongly or straightforwardly as is sometimes believed. Next I look at Iris Murdoch’s work as an example of what I take to be a good approach to ethics, and one that is consistent with Wittgenstein’s thought, as well as turning to recent work by (...) some Wittgensteinian or post-Wittgensteinian ethicists and what it has to say about the value and importance of description. Finally, I try to add something new to this discussion, drawing on work by Donna Haraway and some work in virtue epistemology. Specifically, I suggest that ethics and virtue epistemology are more than merely parallel, I add to the defense of Alice Crary’s Wittgensteinian notion of wider rationality, and I show description of reality to be complicated but possibly a significant tool in moral philosophy. (shrink)

In his classic discussion of liberal education and the nature of knowledge, Professor Hirst argues for a liberal education which is “directly concerned with the development of mind and rational knowledge.”1He sets out clear conditions which any activity must satisfy if it is to be a form of knowledge and suggests that there are seven distinct forms which satisfy these conditions:“mathematics, physical sciences, human sciences, history, religion, literature and the fine arts, philosophy”2The first argument of this paper is that (...) literary criticism exhibits all the features which Hirst demands of a form of knowledge. Second, it is argued that ‘literature’ does not exhibit the characteristics of a form of knowledge. The third argument is that Hirst's acceptance of ‘literature and the fine arts’ as a ‘form of knowledge’ reflects a fundamental deficiency in his list of the distinguishing features of a ‘form of knowledge’, which is that he omits any explicit reference to the necessity for a form of knowledge to exhibit criteria for distinguishing truth from falsity within its domain. (shrink)

In Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind (BISCM), Eric Marcus analyses and responds to a core set of puzzles concerning belief and inference. Most centrally on offer are: an explanation of non-evidential/non-observational doxastic self-knowledge, an explanation of the unintelligibility of Moore-Paradoxical statements, an account of inference (built on an interpretation of the ‘Taking Condition’) fit to solve the Lewis Carroll regress, and an account of what constitutes the unity of the rational mind. Marcus’ answers depend on viewing beliefs as essentially (...) self-known and expressible (through asserting their contents (“P”), or avowing them in a self-ascription (“I believe that P”)). Beliefs are also held to (metaphysically) necessarily exclude their contradictories, and (metaphysically) necessitate their implications. Or at least they do in their paradigm form; when they are ‘in mind’ (an important theoretical concept Marcus makes much use of throughout the book. In this paradigmatic form, Marcus terms them judgments. A significant achievement of BISCM is in how, despite the strength of these and other core commitments (theses variously acknowledged to be “very strong”, “wildly unpopular”, and “singularly anachronistic”, Marcus remains utterly clear-eyed about the need to pass the plausibility test. Nowhere, for example, does he lose sight of the fact that we are “distinctively liable to irrationality”, including to self-deception (which is analysed in terms of both belief and the doxastic self-knowledge which essentially accompanies it on Marcus’ view, being ‘out of mind’). A second, and related strength is in the connections Marcus traces between both expressive and rational mental capacities. This is relatively rare in many of the literatures Marcus is engaging with, especially in the first half of the book. Marcus (building on earlier work) shows how such a synthesis can bear serious fruit, not least in his excellent analysis of Moore-Paradoxical unintelligibility. There is a lot one could say about what is exciting and valuable about each element of Marcus’ discussion. And inevitably for a book so bold and full of riches, there is also a lot one might question about these elements. But as Marcus emphasises, what is on offer is “… not a collection of discrete solutions to putatively separate problems [but] a unified conception of the mind in its theoretical orientation”. And what I want to press him on is a big-picture question: what are the boundaries, and what is the internal structure, of the mind's ‘theoretical’ orientation? For, for all the important and detailed work throughout the book, in which a general conception of believing is suggested, tested, refined, and applied, I don't yet have a stable sense of Marcus’ answers to these questions. (shrink)

In this paper, following Rahel Jaeggi’s critique of forms of life, I contend that to identify genuine critical thinking we should start from an analysis of the normative nature of forms of life as the basic constituents of the social world. In this view, critical thinking can be seen as a critical behaviour. While genuine forms of life can recognize and consider the variety of concrete and diverse situations, on the contrary non-functioning forms of life’s critical (...) rationality understands the norm as applied from outside of the form of life. In this case the norm, erroneously understood as a neutral and universally applicable principle, such as economic rationality, is not able to consider the particularity of forms of life as goods in themselves. I defend the meaning that an education in critical thinking must have, as a genuine and functional rationality characterising human beings in a social world. -/- . (shrink)

In the past decade, the meaning of Hegel's idea of a ‘science of logic’ has become a matter of intense philosophical debate. This article examines the two most influential yet opposed contemporary readings of the Science of Logic—often referred to as the ‘metaphysical’ and ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations. I argue that this debate should be reframed as a contest between logic as ontology (LAO) and logic as metaphysics (LAM). According to Stephen Houlgate's interpretation of logic as ontology, the science of logic is (...) a progressively explicit unfolding of the categories of thought, which is at the same time the process by which being itself determines what it is to be. A second interpretation has been pursued by Sebastian Rödl and Robert Pippin, who read Hegel's logic as metaphysics. On this reading, the science of logic is a progressively coherent unfolding of the categories of thought, which articulate all that it could intelligibly mean to be. This article intervenes in this debate in three key ways. First, I argue that Houlgate's ontological approach undermines his attempt to establish the objective validity of the categories. Second, I show that the LAM emphasis on the crucial idea of apperception enables it to succeed where Houlgate fails by doing justice to the rational necessity with which the Logic unfolds. Third, I argue that, despite this success, the LAM program remains unrealized because of its neglect of Hegel's understanding of cognition as a form of life. While LAM has compellingly unfolded the ‘thought of being’, it has ignored the inverse question of the ‘being of thought’. I attempt to fulfil the LAM program by elaborating Hegel's account of what it means to be a thinker. (shrink)

The value of rational choice theory for the social sciences has long been contested. It is argued here that, in the debate over its role, it is necessary to distinguish between claims that people maximise manifest payoffs, and claims that people maximise their utility. The former version has been falsified. The latter is unfalsifiable, because utility cannot be observed. In principle, utility maximisation can be adapted to fit any form of behaviour, including the behaviour of non-human organisms. Allegedly 'inconsistent' behaviour (...) is also impossible to establish without qualification. This utility-maximising version of rational choice theory has the character of a universal 'explanation' that can be made to 'fit' any set of events. This is a sign of weakness rather than strength. In its excessive quest for generality, utility-maximising rational choice theory fails to focus on the historically and geographically specific features of socio-economic systems. As long as such theory is confined to ahistorical generalities, then it will remain highly limited in dealing with the real world. Instead we have to consider the real social and psychological determinants of human behaviour. (shrink)

According to Bayesian epistemology, rational learning from experience is consistent learning, that is learning should incorporate new information consistently into one's old system of beliefs. Simon M. Huttegger argues that this core idea can be transferred to situations where the learner's informational inputs are much more limited than Bayesianism assumes, thereby significantly expanding the reach of a Bayesian type of epistemology. What results from this is a unified account of probabilistic learning in the tradition of Richard Jeffrey's 'radical probabilism'. Along (...) the way, Huttegger addresses a number of debates in epistemology and the philosophy of science, including the status of prior probabilities, whether Bayes' rule is the only legitimate form of learning from experience, and whether rational agents can have sustained disagreements. His book will be of interest to students and scholars of epistemology, of game and decision theory, and of cognitive, economic, and computer sciences. (shrink)

This paper looks at the question of what form the requirements of practical rationality take. One common view is that the requirements of rationality are wide-scope, and another is that they are narrow-scope. I argue that the resolution to the question of wide-scope versus narrow-scope depends to a significant degree on what one expects a theory of rationality to do. In examining these expectations, I consider whether there might be a way to unify requirements of both (...) class='Hi'>forms into a single theory of rationality, and what the difficulties involved in doing so can teach us about the foundations of practical rationality. (shrink)

Although the AGM theory established a paradigm for the theory of belief revision, which is generally regarded as a kind of standard in the field, it is also frequently criticized as inadequate because it neglects justificational structures. Other theories of belief revision are similarly remiss in this regard. So far, little has been done to address this shortcoming. This paper aims to fill this gap. Following a critical analysis of the AGM theory, a justification operator is introduced as a formal (...) means to incorporate justificational structures into a belief revision theory. An AGM style belief revision theory is proposed that is based on such a justification operator. The theory is presented in an axiomatic form. Representation theorems link the axioms with constructive belief change mechanisms. The proposed theory addresses the problems of the AGM theory and similar approaches that neglect justificational structures. (shrink)