Showing papers on "Rationality published in 1981"

Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory

Abstract: Academic conventions divide up the seamless web of the real social world into separate spheres, each with its own theorising; this is a necessary and practical way of gaining understanding. Subdivisions of social knowledge thus may roughly correspond to the ways in which human affairs are organised in particular times and places. E. H. Carr and Eric Hobsbawm have both been sensitive to the continuities between social forces, the changing nature of the state and global relationships. Critical theory is directed to the social and political complex as a whole rather than to the separate parts. Critical theory allows for a normative choice in favour of a social and political order different from the prevailing order, but it limits the range of choice to alternative orders which are feasible transformations of the existing world. The "common rationality" of neo-realism arises from its polemic with liberal internationalism.

Reason, truth, and history

Abstract: Hilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the fixed categories of thought which have always appeared to define and constrain the permissible solutions to these problems.

Can human irrationality be experimentally demonstrated

Abstract: The object of this paper is to show why recent research in the psychology of deductive and probabilistic reasoning does not have "bleak implications for human rationality," as has sometimes been supposed. The presence of fallacies in reasoning is evaluated by referring to normative criteria which ultimately derive their own credentials from a systematisation of the intuitions that agree with them. These normative criteria cannot be taken, as some have suggested, to constitute a part of natural science, nor can they be established by metamathematical proof. Since a theory of competence has to predict the very same intuitions, it must ascribe rationality to ordinary people.Accordingly, psychological research on this topic falls into four categories. In the first, experimenters investigate conditions under which their subjects suffer from genuine cognitive illusions. The search for explanations of such performance errors may then generate hypotheses about the ways in which the relevant information-processing mechanisms operate. In the second category, experimenters investigate circumstances in which their subjects exhibit mathematical or scientific ignorance: these are tests of the subjects' intelligence or education. In the third and fourth categories, experimenters impute a fallacy where none exists, either because they are applying the relevant normative criteria in an inappropriate way or because the normative criteria being applied are not the appropriate ones.

The Methodology of Economics.

Abstract: This book is an examination of the nature of economic explanation. The opening chapters introduce current thinking in the philosophy of science and review the literature on methodology. Professor Blaug then turns to the troublesome question of the logical status of welfare economics, giving the reader an understanding of the outstanding issues in the methodology of economics. This is followed by a series of case studies of leading economic controversies, which shows how controversies in economics may be illuminated by paying attention to questions of methodology. A final chapter draws the strands together and gives the author's view of what is wrong with modern economics. This book is a revised and updated edition of a classic work on the methodology of economics, in which Professor Blaug develops his discussion of the latest developments in macroeconomics, general equilibrium theory and international trade theory. A new section on the rationality postulate is also added.

Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations

Abstract: Part 1 Control and power in central-local government relations: introduction - the context of intergovernmental relations, summary of events some myths in central-local relations - the "conventional wisdom", the "conventional critique", the "conventional critique" revisited, some recent developments, the "forgotten dimensions" of central-local relations, conclusions interorganizational analysis - the nature of the environment the unit of analysis, organizational goals, power and exchange, consequences, conclusions intergovernmental relations - from federalism to intergovernmental relations, bargaining, diplomacy and "topocrats", conclusions a framework for analysis - figure - the analysis of interactions, ground - the distribution of power, rules, interests and values, concluding discussion - the rationality of ambiguous confusion. Part 2 From institutions to policy to individuals: "power dependence" theories of central-local relations - a critical assessment - critical appraisal, towards a theoretical reconstruction, conclusions -what has been achieved? new directions in the study of policy networks - a typology of policy networks, key issues, conclusions - new directions analyzing networks - from typologies of institutions to narratives of beliefs - developments in the study of policy networks, deconstructing networks, reconstructing networks, conclusions.

Is Belief in God Properly Basic

Abstract: Many philosophers have urged the evidentialist objection to theistic belief; they have argued that belief in God is irrational or unreasonable or not rationally acceptable or intellectually irresponsible or noetically substandard, because, as they say, there is insufficient evidence for it.' Many other philosophers and theologians-in particular, those in the great tradition of natural theology-have claimed that belief in God is intellectually acceptable, but only because the fact is there is sufficient evidence for it. These two groups unite in holding that theistic belief is rationally acceptable only if there is sufficient evidence for it. More exactly, they hold that a person is rational or reasonable in accepting theistic belief only if she has sufficient evidence for it-only if, that is, she knows or rationally believes some other propositions which support the one in question, and believes the latter on the basis of the former. In [4] I argued that the evidentialist objection is rooted in classicalfoundationalism, an enormously popular picture or total way of looking at faith, knowledge, justified belief, rationality and allied topics. This picture has been widely accepted ever since the days of Plato and Aristotle; its near relatives, perhaps, remain the dominant ways of thinking about these topics. We may think of the classical foundationalist as beginning with the observation that some of one's beliefs may be based upon others; it may be that there are a pair of propositions A andB such that I believeA on the basis of B. Although this relation isn't easy to characterize in a revealing and non-trivial fashion, it is nonetheless familiar. I believe that the word 'umbrageous' is spelled u-m-b-r-a-g-e-o-u-s: this belief is based on another belief of mine: the belief that that's how the dictionary says it's spelled. I believe that 72 x 71 = 5112. This belief is based upon several other beliefs I hold: that 1 x 72=72; 7 x 2 = 14; 7 x 7 = 49; 49 + 1 = 50; and others. Some of my beliefs, however, I accept but don't accept on the basis of any other beliefs. Call these beliefs basic. I believe that 2 + 1 = 3, for example, and don't believe it on the basis of other propositions. I also believe that I am seated at my desk, and that there is a mild pain in my right knee.

From System to Story: An Alternative Pattern for Rationality in Ethics

Abstract: In the interest of securing a rational foundation for morality, contemporary ethical theory has ignored or rejected the significance of narrative for ethical reflection It is our contention that this has been a profound mistake, resulting in a distorted account of moral experience Furthermore, the attempt to portray practical reason as independent of narrative contexts has made it difficult to assess the value which convictions characteristic of Christians or Jews might have for moral existence As a result, we have lost sight of the ways these traditions might help us deal with the moral issues raised by modern science and medicine1

Political Cues and the Perception of Candidates

Abstract: Though typically they have not been the subject of systematic analysis, political cues are often depicted as having a major influence on voters' perceptions of political candidates. In this regard, different interpretations have been offered by those adopting perceptual balance and rational choice perspectives. After reviewing the points of controversy separating these two approaches, a more comprehensive explanation of political cues is offered. In particular, the use of political cues is depicted as involving two key elements: the political cue and the political stereotype with which the cue is associated. The implications of this perspective for voter rationality are then discussed. Finally, some of the key hypotheses are tested, and found to be supported through the use of experimental data.

The evolution of rationality

Abstract: • . . our concrete mental operations are indeed adaptations to the mode of life in which we had to compete for survival a long, long, time before science. As such we are saddled with them, just as we are with our organs of locomotion and our eyes and ears. But in science we can transcend them, as electronics t ranscends our sense organs. Why, then, do the formal operations of the mind carry us so much further? Were those abilities not also matters of biological evolution? tf they, too, evolved to let us get along in the cave, how can it be that they permit us to obtain deep insights into cosmology, elementary particles, molecular genetics, number theory? To this question I have no answer.

Rationality and Freedom, Weber and Beyond

Abstract: In the tradition of German social thought from Kant and Hegel through Toennies and Simmel, the development of rationality in modern Europe is associated with an increase of human freedom. Weber's work departs from that tradition by providing an incomparably differentiated framework for the analysis of rationality and by associating modern European rationalization with a curtailment of freedom. More careful examination of Weber's oeuvre, however, indicates that he, too, connected rationalization with the growth of freedom in many respects. His amended argument remains valuable today, although ways in which it stands to be improved by incorporating subsequent analyses are suggested.

The Role of the Arts in Cognition and Curriculum.

Abstract: Student artwork provided courtesy Monroe County Community School Corporation, Bloomington, Indiana My thesis is straightforward but not widely accepted. It is that the arts are cognitive activities, guided by human intelligence, that make unique forms of meaning possible. I shall argue further that the meanings secured through the arts require what might best be described as forms of artistic literacy, without which artistic meaning is impeded and the ability to use more conventional forms of expres sion is hampered. To talk about the cognitive character of the arts or about the kind of meaning that they convey is not particularly com mon. The models of mind that have typi fied U.S. educational psychology (par ticularly that aspect of psychology con cerned with learning and knowing) have made tidy separations between thinking and feeling, feeling and acting, and acting and thinking.1 The view of thinking that has been most common is rooted in the Platonic belief that mind and body are distinct, and, of the two, body is base while mind is lofty.2 Feeling is located in soma, idea in psyche. The literature dis tinguishes between cognition and affect, and we tend to regard as cognitive those activities of mind that mediate ideas through words and numbers. We consider words more abstract than images, icons less flexible than propositions. We regard words as high in that hierarchy of cogni tive achievement we use to describe cogni tive growth. Jean Piaget, for example, re garded formal operations, those mental operations that deal with logical relation ships, as the apotheosis of cognitive achievement.3 For some cognitive psy chologists, thinking is a kind of inner speech that allows one to reason.4 Since reason is a condition of rationality, and since reasoning is believed to require the logical treatment of words, operations of the mind that do not employ logic are placed on the margins of rationality. In this view the arts, if not considered irrational, are thought of as a-rational. As for meaning, it is most commonly re

Divine and contingent order

Abstract: This book examines the implications for our understanding of the universe of the Judaeo-Christian claim that it is contingent: freely created by God out of nothing, and having an existence, freedom, and rational order of its own while still dependent on God.The author argues that this claim made possible the development of western empirical science, but that Newtonian physics obscured the connection between the rational order of nature and the Christian doctrine of creation. He then shows how modern relativity and quantum theories have once again drawn attention to the significance of contingence, and imply that the universe is found to be consistently rational only if it is dependent on a creative rationality beyond it.

Rationality and Equity in Professional Networks: Gender and Race as Factors in the Stratification of Interorganizational Systems

Abstract: The organizational principles of rationality and equity account for the bureaucratic leveling effect on social differences posited by Weber. An inference from this framework, that organizational systems will neither create nor reinforce inequality based on gender or race, was examined with data provided by the members of six multiagency social service delivery systems. The dependent variable was a measure of access to the networks of interorganizational exchange that tied together the agencies in these systems. This measure, called centraliy, did not vary by race or gender. However, an analysis of first-and second-order interaction effects indicated that the combinations of investments and contributions that were predictive of centrality were very different for white men, white women, nonwhite men, and nonwhite women. A complicated process of negotiation for resource and advantages was indicated that is not easily reconciled with deductions from classical organizational theory.

Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration

Abstract: I: Causation.- 1. The Knowledge Context Kzt.- Personal Possibilities.- Minimal Rationality.- Epistemic Possibilities.- 2. The Language Framework:L or L??.- Peirce's Theory of Signs.- The Theoretical Objective.- A Dispositional Ontology.- 3. Syntax. Semantics, and Ontology.- Nomological Conditionals.- A Probabilistic Causal Calculus.- Alternative Interpretations.- II: Explanation.- 4. Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance.- Reichenbach's Reference Classes.- Salmon's Statistical Relevance.- Hempel's Maximal Specificity.- 5. A Single Case Theory of Causal Explanation.- "Long Run" Dispositional Concepts.- Alternative "Single Case" Concepts.- A Single-Case Theory of Explanation.- 6. The Dispositional Construction of Theories.- Causal and Non-Causal Explanations.- Theories and Theoretical Explanations.- "Instrumentalism" and Theoretical Realism.- III: Corroboration.- 7. The Justification of Induction.- The Traditional Problem of Induction.- The "Paradoxes" of Confirmation.- A Critique of Hume's Critique.- 8. Confirmation and Corroboration.- Bayesian Conceptions of Confirmation.- Traditional Principles of Induction.- Popperian Procedures of Corroboration.- 9. Acceptance and Rejection Rules.- "Orthodox" Hypothesis Testing.- An Inductive Acceptance Rule.- In Defense of this Conception.- 10. Rationality and Fallibility.- Scientific Rationality.- Personal Probabilities.- Scientific Fallibility.- References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

”Why Ain’cha Rich?’

Abstract: Some think that in (a suitable version of) Newcomb's problem, it is rational to take only one box. These one-boxers think of the situation as a choice between a million and a thousand. They are convinced by indicative conditionals: if I take one box I will be a millionaire, but if I take both boxes I will not. Their conception of rationality may be called V-rationality; they deem it rational to maximize V, that being a kind of expected utility defined in entirely non-causal terms. Their decision ,theory is that of Jeffrey [2]. Others, and I for one, think it rational to take both boxes. We two-boxers think that whether the million already awaits us or not, we have no choice between taking it and leaving it. We are convinced by counterfactual conditionals: If I took only one box, I would be poorer by a thousand than I will be after taking both. (We distinguish nornal from back-tracking counterfactuals, perhaps as in [4], and are persuaded only by the former.) Our conception of rationality is U-rationality; we favor maximizing U, a kind of expected utility defined in terms of causal dependence as well as credence and value. Our decision theory is that of Gibbard and Harper [ 1 ], or something similar. The one-boxers sometimes taunt us: if you're so smart, why ain'cha rich? They have their millions and we have our thousands, and they think this goes to show the error of our ways. They think we are not rich because we have irrationally chosen not to have our millions. We reply that we never were given any choice about whether to have a million. When we made our choices, there were no millions to be had. The reason why we are not rich is that the riches were reserved for the irrational. In the words of Gibbard and Harper [1],

Appearance and reality in politics

Abstract: A variety of social and political theorists, most notably Plato, Hegel, Marx, and Freud, distinguish a society's real structure from the appearance it presents to its participants. Bound up with this distinction are those between theory and ideology, thought and action, the actual and the possible, and consciousness and self-consciousness. The goal of theory, when these distinctions are prominent, is to pierce through appearances to the real structure, to allow (at least some) participants to see things as they really are, and either to reconcile the newly self-conscious agents to necessity or to encourage them to bring the society into closer harmony with their real interests. The view that consciousness enters into the fabric of social life plays a prominent role in most theories where the appearance/reality distinction is operative. But extreme theories of intersubjectivity--those which identify social reality with the shared consciousness of participants---dissolve the appearance/reality distinction. If shared concepts, beliefs, and norms exhaust social reality, and if, as sometimes alleged, standards of rationality themselves are relative to each way of life, social appearance and reality would coincide automatically.' Similarly, "structural" theories cannot capture the complexity of the relation between appearance and reality. For they treat the ideas and aspirations of a populace entirely as effects to be explained, never as ingredients which help to explain social relations.2 By failing to acknowledge that social relations are constituted partly by the self-interpretations of participants who retain some reflexive capacity to confront new interpretations and to convert them into premises of future conduct, the frozen categories of structural theory gloss over complexities, ambiguities, and possibilities immanent within the society studied.

Children's Rights: A Philosophical Study

Abstract: Originally published in 1981, this book provides a detailed account of the emergence of the children’s rights movement, and analyses the concept of a right. It considers the justifications which may be sought when rights are claimed. Particular attention is given to the problem which arises when different rights are seen to be in conflict with each other or with other kinds of moral consideration. These arguments are then examined with regard to such special features of children as their incomplete but developing rationality and their material dependence on adults.

What are the options? social determinants of personal research plants

Abstract: Science evolves through innumerable particular decisions of individual scientists to undertake specific investigations. Since the outcome of a completed investigation is an historical fact which cannot be changed, and the outcome of a proposed investigation cannot, from the very definition of research, be foreseen, conscious intention can be related only to a question to be answered or a problem to be solved. The rationality of the process of research, i.e., the extent to which it is an activity capable of well-ordered public or introspective explication, evinces itself primarily at the point where the scientist has to decide the question: "What research shall I do now?"1 This question arises in implicit form hourly, daily, weekly, yearly, or even from decade to decade in the life of every scientist. But mostly it is decided in relation to some larger plan of which the investigation under consideration is merely a contributory part. The scientific life is like "everyday" life in that its actions are normally governed by a hierarchy of plans the interconnected consequences and goals of which extend to ever-widening horizons.2 Thus, today I decide to discover why the electron microscope is not giving a steady image. I do this in order to continue observations of the dislocation structure in an alloy specimen, which is one of a batch of 20 that are being deliberately subjected to various mechanical stresses, so that I may test a conjecture concerning creep in turbine blades and thus contribute to the design of a new jet engine being undertaken for the air force by my company. Although I have not worked out a detailed programme of action in advance, the words I use show that I shall be able to decide the direction of each successive step by the logic of the current situation, within this larger framework of intentions. Unlike the lecturer who plans to explain the indeterminacy principle to the Stage I students in room G.42 between 12.00 p.m. and 12.50 p.m. on Thursday

Economic man and original

Abstract: . Are we descended from Adam or from rational economic homunculi? Rational-man theories usually favour the latter. But all four main versions run into famous puzzles of collective action. The cause is an underlying Humean philosophy of mind, by which desires, not reasons, move the rational man. When this is replaced, the idea of expressive rationality can be made to work. It requires a model of man, which gives human nature less variables and more constants. Among the constants there needs to be a pride, which spurs men both to create a social framework and to undermine their own creation. The old name for this source of social contradictions is Original Sin.

The diversity of moral thinking

Abstract: This book argues for a radically different approach to traditional and important problems of moral philosophy. The book discusses three theses; the diversity of moralities and moral judgements, their normativesness, and their possible rationality.

Hume's Theory of Justice

Abstract: A Treatise of Human Nature was published between 1739 and 1740. Book I, entitled Of the Understanding, contains Hume's epistemology, i.e., his account of the manner in which we acquire knowledge in general, its justification (to the extent that he thought it could be justified), and its limits. Book II, entitled Of the Passions, expounds most of what could be called Hume's philosophy of psychology in general, and his moral psychology (including discussions of the problem of the freedom of the will and the rationality of action) in particular. Book III, entitled Of Morals, is also divided into three parts. Part II of Book III, entitled Of justice and injustice, is the subject of the present volume. In it Hume attempts to give an empiricist theory of justice. He rejects the view, approximated to in varying degrees by Cumberland, Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Wollaston, and Butler, that justice is something natural and part of the nature of things, and that its edicts are eternal and immutable, and discernible by reason. Hume maintains, on the contrary, as did Hobbes and Mandeville, that justice is a matter of observing rules or conventions which are of human invention, and that, in consequence, our acquiring a knowledge of justice is an empirical affair of ascertaining what these rules or conventions are.

Argument and the “definition of the situation”

Abstract: Actors’ “definitions of the situation”; provide a basis for understanding the rationality of practical judgment and action. Such definitions arise in social interaction. An analysis of actors’ definitions reveals three inventional heuristics—closure, counting, and coherence.

The computer as mediator: Law of the sea and beyond

Abstract: Occasionally, analytic models have found their way into complex policy negotiations. This article scrutinizes four such cases. When they appear independent and credible, models can play a variety of traditional mediating roles: They can foster learning, help define the negotiating agenda, stimulate communication, and suggest joint gains. These constructs can also offer artificial common ground for proposals to be tested, disputants' differences to be dovetailed, and adversaries “convinced” to move from entrenched positions without “conceding” to bargaining opponents. Yet, where the negotiators' basic values or ideologies actively clash, the special kind of rationality provided by models may prove to be irrelevant.

The history of the concept of motivation.

Abstract: Explanations and postulated mechanisms of motivation are traced from Hobbes to current cognitive formulations. Beginning with the hedonic principle, succeeding explanations of motivation have included drive theory, in terms of reflexive properties and in the Freudian notion of unconscious motivation, and current cognitive explanations, which have not yet been fully developed. It is hoped that the repeating cycle from rationality to irrationality and over again can be avoided in future explanations.