Showing papers on "Rationality published in 2013"

Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate

Abstract: Dual-process and dual-system theories in both cognitive and social psychology have been subjected to a number of recently published criticisms. However, they have been attacked as a category, incorrectly assuming there is a generic version that applies to all. We identify and respond to 5 main lines of argument made by such critics. We agree that some of these arguments have force against some of the theories in the literature but believe them to be overstated. We argue that the dual-processing distinction is supported by much recent evidence in cognitive science. Our preferred theoretical approach is one in which rapid autonomous processes (Type 1) are assumed to yield default responses unless intervened on by distinctive higher order reasoning processes (Type 2). What defines the difference is that Type 2 processing supports hypothetical thinking and load heavily on working memory.

Risk, uncertainty, and rational action

Abstract: Foreword * Preface * General Introduction * The Rational Actor World * RAP: The Monarch and his Shaky Kingdom * Risky Decisions of a Single Agent * Risky Decisions of Interacting Agents * Looking for Other World * Challenged and Alternatives to RAP in the Study if Risk * Modernity and Beyond * From Monological to Dialogical Rationality * References * Index

The rules of the game: women and the leaderist turn in higher education

Abstract: This paper engages with Diana Leonard's writing on how gender is constituted in the academy. It offers an international review of feminist knowledge on how gender and power interact with leadership in higher education. It interrogates the ‘leaderist turn’ or how leadership has developed into a popular descriptor and a dominant social and organisational technology in academia. It considers some of the explanatory frameworks that have been marshalled to analyse women's leadership aspirations and absences. In doing so, it attempts to unmask the ‘rules of the game’ that lurk beneath the surface rationality of academic meritocracy. It also poses questions about the relentless misrecognition of women's leadership capacities and suggests the need for an expanded lexicon of leadership with which to move into the university of the future.

Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World

Abstract: CONTENTS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SOURCES INTRODUCTION PART I SHARED AGENCY Ch. 1 Acting Together Ch. 2 Considerations on Joint Commitment Ch. 3 Who's to Blame? Ch. 4 Rationality in Collective Action Ch. 5 Two Approaches to Shared Intention PART II COLLECTIVE ATTITUDES Ch. 6 Belief and Acceptance as Features of Groups Ch. 7 Collective Epistemology Ch. 8 Shared Values, Social Unity, and Liberty Ch. 9 Social Convention Revisited Ch. 10 Collective Guilt Feelings PART III MUTUAL RECOGNITION, PROMISES, AND LOVE Ch. 11 ": a contractual model Ch. 12 The problem of promisees' rights Ch. 13 Three dogmas about promising Ch. 14 Mutual Recognition PART IV POLITICAL LIFE Ch. 15 A Real Unity of Them All Ch. 16 Pro Patria: an Essay on Patriotism Ch. 17 De-moralizing Political Obligation Ch. 18 Commands and Their Practical Import BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AUTHOR'S WORKS INDEX

Risk and rationality

Abstract: Introduction 1. InstInstrumental Rationality and Expected Utility Theory 2. Risk-Weighted Expected Utility 3. Representation 4. Redescription 5. Consistency 6. Diachronic Choice 7. Bookmaking and Packaging 8. Conclusion Appendices Bibliography Index

Critical thinking: seven definitions in search of a concept

Abstract: The article reports a study that investigated ideas about critical thinking as held by academics working in three disciplines: history, philosophy and cultural studies. At least seven definitional strands were identified in the informants’ commentaries, namely critical thinking: (i) as judgement; (ii) as skepticism; (iii) as a simple originality; (iv) as sensitive readings; (v) as rationality; (vi) as an activist engagement with knowledge; and (vii) as self-reflexivity. This multiplicity of meanings is thought to have important implications for university teaching and learning. The design of the study and the conclusions drawn from it draw heavily on Wittgenstein's idea of meaning as use.

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality

Abstract: In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass Its home was the human sciences - psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others - and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the people - Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many others - and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a "Cold War rationality" Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationality - optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanical - in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship

Reclaiming Virtue Ethics for Economics

Abstract: contrast, virtue ethics —the study of moral character—has been an important strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years, but has received little strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years, but has received little attention from contemporary economists. That neglect has not been reciprocated. attention from contemporary economists. That neglect has not been reciprocated. A signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical A signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical critique of the market economy and of economics. Expressed crudely, the charge critique of the market economy and of economics. Expressed crudely, the charge sheet is this: The market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motisheet is this: The market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motivation; market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human vation; market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors; by using market exchange practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors; by using market exchange as its central model, economics normalizes extrinsic motivation, not only in markets as its central model, economics normalizes extrinsic motivation, not only in markets but also (in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences) in social life but also (in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences) in social life more generally; therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on more generally; therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on human fl ourishing. We will argue that this critique is fl awed, both as a descriphuman fl ourishing. We will argue that this critique is fl awed, both as a description of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and tion of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and neo classical economists have understood the market. We will show how the market neo classical economists have understood the market. We will show how the market and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics. and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics. Crucially, our response to that critique will be constructed Crucially, our response to that critique will be constructed using the language and logic of virtue ethics. In this respect, it is fundamentally different from a response . In this respect, it is fundamentally different from a response that many economists would fi nd more natural—to point to the enormous benefi ts, that many economists would fi nd more natural—to point to the enormous benefi ts,

Incorporating Limited Rationality into Economics

Abstract: Harstad and Selten (this forum) raise interesting questions about the relative promise of optimization models and bounded-rationality models in making progress in economics. This article builds from their analysis by indicating the potential for using neoclassical (broadly defined) optimization models to integrate insights from psychology on the limits to rationality into economics. I lay out an approach to making (imperfect and incremental) improvements over previous economic theory by incorporating greater realism while attempting to maintain the breadth of application, the precision of predictions, and the insights of neoclassical theory. I then discuss how many human limits to full rationality are, in fact, well understood in terms of optimization. ( JEL B49, D01, D03, D81, D84)

Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World : The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate

Abstract: John McDowell and Hubert L. Dreyfus are philosophers of world renown, whose work has decisively shaped the fields of analytic philosophy and phenomenology respectively. Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate opens with their debate over one of the most important and controversial subjects of philosophy: is human experience pervaded by conceptual rationality, or does experience mark the limits of reason? Is all intelligibility rational, or is there a form of intelligibility at work in our skilful bodily rapport with the world that eludes our intellectual capacities? McDowell and Dreyfus provide a fascinating insight into some fundamental differences between analytic philosophy and phenomenology, as well as areas where they may have something in common. Fifteen specially commissioned chapters by distinguished international contributors enrich the debate inaugurated by McDowell and Dreyfus, taking it in a number of different and important directions. Fundamental philosophical problems discussed include: the embodied mind, subjectivity and self-consciousness, intentionality, rationality, practical skills, human agency, and the history of philosophy from Kant to Hegel to Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty. With the addition of these outstanding contributions, Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World is essential reading for students and scholars of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. © 2013 Joseph K. Schear.

Accounting as an affective technology: A study of circulation, agency and entrancement

Abstract: This paper argues that accounting is an affective technology. We show how people’s feelings and emotions are constructed through accounting practices and templates. Much research in accounting and economics is based on rationality assumptions that suggest that people act after working through cost–benefit calculations. Information may be imperfect and our cognitive abilities constrained but such modes of calculation and economic reasoning are assumed to drive action. Whilst not setting aside the significance of rationality and intelligibility, this study illustrates that it is affect and passion alongside cognitive calculation that generate movement and action in organisational networks. An in-depth case study of a very large and well known global American corporation spanning 4 years illustrates how affect is engineered by corporate executives through accounting templates and targets. In local sites, periods of excitement and elation ensue but so do anxiety and sleepless nights as yet again, budgets are cut and stated targets rise. Productivity spreadsheets, planning pyramids and human resource programs all contribute to the circulation of affect in the global network as new identities (both individual and collective) are defined and underperforming employees managed out. The committed and devoted ‘Players’ of the organisation express love for the firm, tolerate inconsistent instructions and overlook what might (by outsiders) be conceived as breaches of trust. As such, they collaborate in their own entrancement. We conclude that accounting technologies play on people’s passions and emotions rather than purely on their intellectual and reasoning skills, and that it is this emotive edge to accounting that generates and sustains action in organisational networks.

In Praise of Desire

Abstract: Contents Introduction 0.1 Moral Psychology 0.2 Reason and Appetite 0.3 Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Realizer Desires 0.4 The Many Guises of the Good 0.5 The Work to be Done Part I: Reason Chapter 1: Deliberation 1.1 The Nature of Deliberation 1.2 The Rationality of Acts of Deliberation 1.3 Deliberation and Regress 1.4 Other Objections 1.5 Deliberative Exceptionalism 1.6 Is there an Ambiguity? 1.7 If not Deliberation, Then Representation? 1.8 Thinking and Acting for Reasons without Deliberation Chapter 2: How Deliberation Works 2.1 The Role of Deliberation 2.2 How Deliberation Works 2.3 The Moral of the Story Chapter 3: Thinking and Acting for Reasons 3.1 Objective Reasons and Rationalizing Reasons 3.2 Physical Properties, Contents, and Reasons 3.3 Because of Reasons 3.4 Reasons, Causes, and Mountain Climbers 3.5 Acting for Bad Reasons 3.6 Thinking and Acting for Multiple Reasons and Non-Reasons 3.7 Habit and Inaction 3.8 Acting for Moral Reasons Part II: Desire Chapter 4: Love and Care 4.1 Love 4.2 Care Chapter 5: What Desires Are Not 5.1 Action is not the Essence of Desire 5.2 Feeling is not the Essence of Desire Chapter 6: What Desires Are 6.1 The Reward and Punishment Systems 6.2 The Reward System Causes what Desires Cause 6.3 Intrinsic Desires are a Natural Kind 6.4 Solutions and Promissory Notes Part III: Virtue Chapter 7: Credit and Blame 7.1 Attributability and Accountability 7.2 Good Will and Ill Will 7.3 A Theory of Praise- and Blameworthiness 7.4 Side Constraints 7.5 Conceptualization 7.6 Too Much Credit, Too Much Blame 7.7 Partial Good and Ill Will Chapter 8: Virtue 8.1 A Theory of Virtue 8.2 The Theory Applied 8.3 Virtues and Their Effects 8.4 Virtue and Involuntary Attitudes 8.5 Virtuous Irrationality 8.6 The Unity of the Virtues Chapter 9: Virtue and Cognition 9.1 Familiar Cognitive Effects of Desires 9.2 The Effects of Good Will on Cognition 9.3 The Vice of Being Prejudiced 9.4 The Vice of Being Close-Minded 9.5 The Virtue of Being Open-Minded 9.6 Modesty and Immodesty 9.7 Vicious Dreams Part IV: Puzzles Chapter 10: Inner Struggle 10.1 Akrasia 10.2 The Experience of Inner Struggle 10.3 Inner Struggle Explained Chapter 11: Addiction 11.1 The Puzzle 11.2 The Science of Addiction 11.3 The Philosophy of Addiction 11.4 The Blameworthiness of Addicts 11.5 Addiction in Moral Psychology Conclusion 12.1 Taking Stock 12.2 Looking Forward Works Cited Index

Constructivism and public policy approaches in the EU: from ideas to power games

Abstract: The aim of this contribution is to critically analyse the strengths and pitfalls of constructivist public policy approaches in European Union (EU) studies and to develop avenues for further research. Four conceptual frameworks are more specifically discussed: (1) sociological institutionalism; (2) discursive institutionalism; (3) approaches based on socialization and learning;, and finally (4) actor-centred constructivism. When the constructivist turn in international relations ‘hit’ European integration theories, the large epistemological tent under which constructivists gathered centred schematically around two puzzles: how ideas, norms and world views were established; and how and why they mattered. Recently, actor strategies and economic rationality have been reintroduced into constructivist accounts. This actor-centred constructivism is very much based on the idea that in order to understand how actors think and how their ideas count in policy-making, one must take into account the way actors use ide...

Rational Choice Theory: Resisting Colonisation

Abstract: Rational Choice Theory is flourishing in sociology and is increasingly influential in other disciplines. Contributors to this volume are convinced that it provides an inadequate conceptualization of all aspects of decision making: of the individuals who make the decisions, of the process by which decisions get made and of the context within which decisions get made. The ciritique focuses on the four assumptions which are the bedrock of rational choice: rationality: the theory's definition of rationality is incomplete, and cannot satisfactorily incorporate norms and emotions individualism: rational choice is based upon atomistic, individual decision makers and cannot account for decisions made by;couples', 'groups' or other forms of collective action process: the assumption of fixed, well-ordered preferences and 'perfect information' makes the theory inadequate for situations of change and uncertainty aggregation: as methodological individualists, rational choice theorists can only view structure and culture as aggregates and cannot incorporate structural or cultural influences as emergent properties which have an effect upon decision making. The critique is grounded in discussion of a wide range of social issues, including race, marriage, health and education.

Is Microfoundational Thinking Critical to Management Thought and Practice

Abstract: An introduction is presented to articles in this issue including "What Are Microfoundations?," "Rational and Reasonable Microfoundations of Markets and Institutions" and " Microfoundations of Management: Behavioral Strategies and Levels of Rationality in Organizational Action."

Boardroom Strategic Decision‐Making Style: Understanding the Antecedents

Abstract: Manuscript Type Empirical Research Issue The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the antecedents that lead to boards embracing either procedural rationality or political behaviors as a particular style of strategic decision making. Research Findings Semi-structured interviews with 29 directors and officers of eight publicly-traded US companies were conducted. Of the eight boards analyzed, there were clear differences in the predominant style of decision making operationalized by each. More importantly, however, the variance between boards that tended towards procedural rationality versus political behaviors as the predominant style of strategic decision making was explained by three primary factors. These included: (1) shared mental models; (2) balanced power relationships between the board members and CEO, as well as amongst individual board members; and (3) board chair leadership skills. Our data allow us to identify important antecedents of these factors. Theoretical Implications We add to the work seeking to understand the processes associated with board level strategic decision making. We augment decision-making theories relating to procedural rationality and political behaviors with board-specific factors and their characteristics. Practitioner Implications We isolate a number of antecedents relating to the conduct of boards and the environment of board decision making. We also highlight the roles of the board chair and the CEO for creating a boardroom environment conducive to engaging in quality decision-making processes.

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind

Abstract: In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciences—psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others—and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the people—Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many others—and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a “Cold War rationality.” Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationality—optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanical—in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy. The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship.

Microfoundations of Management: Behavioral Strategies and Levels of Rationality in Organizational Action

Abstract: Behavioral strategies are a potentially promising microfoundation of management research. Organizational scholars are investigating strategies involving momentum, feedback, inference, and anticipation, and evidence is mounting for each one. These strategies are interesting because they reflect how boundedly rational decision makers reach different levels of collective rationality in organizational action, and they have consequences for organizational learning and adaptation. They also serve as windows into decision-making processes and sources of puzzles that can guide direct investigation of decision-making processes. The combination of evidence, consequentiality, and generative power for future research argues for giving behavioral strategies a role in the microfoundations of management theory.

Towards an ontology of design: lessons from C–K design theory and Forcing

Abstract: In this paper we present new propositions about the ontology of design and a clarification of its position in the general context of rationality and knowledge. We derive such ontology from a comparison between formal design theories developed in two different scientific fields: Engineering and Set theory. We first build on the evolution of design theories in engineering, where the quest for domain-independence and " generativity " has led to formal approaches, likewise C-K theory, that are independent of what has to be designed. Then we interpret Forcing, a technique in Set theory developed for the controlled invention of new sets, as a general design theory. Studying similarities and differences between C-K theory and Forcing, we find a series of common notions like " d-ontologies " , " generic expansion " , " object revision " , " preservation of meaning " and " K-reordering ". They form altogether an " ontology of design " which is consistent with unique aspects of design.

The concept of organization

Abstract: In recent years a good deal of the very best sociological work has been devoted to the study of organization. Although the term, organization, belongs to the category of expressions about which there is maintained an air of informed vagueness, certain special conventions exist that focus its use, with qualifications, on a delimited set of phenomena. In accordance with these conventions, the term applies correctly to stable associations of persons engaged in concerted activities directed to the attainment of specific objectives. It is thought to be a decisive characteristic of such organizations that they are deliberately instituted relative to these objectives. Because organizations, in this sense, are implementing and implemented programs of action that involve a substantial dose of comprehensive and rational planning, they are identified as instances of formal or rational organization in order to differentiate them from other forms.1 It has been one of the most abiding points of interest of modern organizational research to study how well the programmatically intended formal structures of organizations describe what is going on within them, and what unintended, unprogrammed, and thus informal structures tend to accompany them. How do sociologists go about distinguishing the facts of formal organization from the facts of informal organization? There seem to be two things that matter in the ways this distinction is drawn. There is, in the first place, a certain scholarly tradition in which the distinction is rooted. It dates back to Pareto’s definition of rationality, Tonnies’ typology, Cooley’s concept of primary-group, and – tracing through the seminal achievement of the Hawthorn studies – the tradition is very much alive today. Being steeped in this line of scholarship allows a sociologist to claim his colleagues’ consent to the decisions he makes. In this way the distinction is a fact of life in sociological inquiry, and perceiving it correctly is a trademark of

Theories of cognitive distortions in sexual offending: what the current research tells us.

Abstract: Cognitive distortions in sex offenders are specific or general beliefs/attitudes that violate commonly accepted norms of rationality that have been shown to be associated with the onset and maintenance of sexual offending. In this article, we describe the major theories that have been formulated to explain the role of distorted cognition in initiating and maintaining sexual offending. We evaluate each theory in light of a set of theory appraisal criteria and the available empirical research. Finally, we conclude by drawing together the results of this theory evaluation process and highlight the major implications for treatment and future research.

What is Wrong with the 'What-Went-Right' Approach in Educational Policy?

Abstract: This article critically examines how 'what-went-right' analyses are used to subsequently justify the transfer of reform packages or 'best practices' from one country to another. Similar to evidence-based policy planning, the what-went-right approach needs to be criticized for being presumptuous. There are three fallacies of the what-went-right analysis that the article dismantles: rationality, precision and universality. The article focuses on the facade of universality and examines how the claim to universal solutions is methodologically sustained. First, the author shows how standardized or normative comparison has in recent years overshadowed the other two types of comparison: comparison across time (historical analyses) and comparison across contexts ('simple comparison'). Then, she elaborates on why the what-went-right approach requires policy analysts to downplay differences between educational systems in order to establish comparability between cases. The emphasis on comparability and similarity of cases is a prerequisite to importing 'best practices' from vastly different educational systems. But what if transfer occurs regardless of difference? There is a curious phenomenon that the article addresses in greater detail: the retrospective definition of a local problem. Given the worldwide circulation of 'best practices' and traveling reform packages, policy analysts sometimes are under pressure to align their analyses of local problems with already existing global solutions. The article ends with a reflection on policy borrowing and lending research and situates the what-went-right approach in the broader question of why and how policy analysts 'buy' or 'sell' reform packages that worked well in one context for transfer into another. In this article I examine the reasons why the 'what-went-right' approach has become so popular, the methodological assumptions upon which it depends, as well as its impact upon agenda setting and policy formulation. This approach often leads to the erroneous assumption that what went right in one educational system will inevitably work well in another. Because it is associated with policy borrowing and learning, the approach has drawn the attention of comparative education researchers. The what-went-right approach is related to two other practices in policy studies: evidence- based policy planning and lesson-drawing. The latter is nowadays more commonly defined as learning from 'best practices.' If we were to place the three terms on a continuum ranging from analytical to prescriptive, evidence-based policy planning would be considered the most analytical, lesson-drawing the most prescriptive, and the what-went-right approach would fall somewhere in between. Evidence-based policy planning is, at least in its intention, an instrument for evaluating and understanding the effectiveness of a reform. At the other end of the continuum are 'best practices' that organizations export or import, lend or borrow or, more generally, transfer from one context to another.

Epistemic Decision Theory

Abstract: I explore the prospects for modelling epistemic rationality (in the probabilist setting) via an epistemic decision theory, in a consequentialist spirit. Previous work has focused on cases in which the truth-values of the propositions in which the agent is selecting credences do not depend, either causally or merely evidentially, on the agent�s choice of credences. Relaxing that restriction leads to a proliferation of puzzle cases and theories to deal with them, including epistemic analogues of evidential and causal decision theory, and of the Newcomb Problem and �Psychopath Button� Problem. A variant of causal epistemic decision theory deals well with most cases. However, there is a recalcitrant class of problem cases for which no epistemic decision theory seems able to match our intuitive judgements of epistemic rationality. This lends both precision and credence to the view that there is a fundamental mismatch between epistemic consequentialism and the intuitive notion of epistemic rationality; the implications for understanding the latter are briefly discussed.

Negotiating personal engagement and professional accountability: professional wisdom and ethics work

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between personal engagement and professional accountability in social work—considering whether the increasing focus on professional accountability in the context of the new public management, public austerity and market-based systems of welfare is incompatible with the personal engagement of social workers with service users and with their work. After undertaking a conceptual analysis of the terms, it is argued that both personal engagement and professional accountability are essential features of social work. Indeed, it is this negotiation of the creative tension between them that constitutes the subject matter and work of professional ethics. This requires a capacity and disposition for good judgement based in professional wisdom and a process of practical reasoning or ‘ethics work’ to find the right balance between closeness and distance, passion and rationality, empathic relationships and measurable social outcomes. It also requires a space for the exercise of pr...

Peacebuilding, the local and the international: a colonial or a postcolonial rationality?

Abstract: There is much debate in the peacebuilding literature on the question of agency and its locations. Given the interventionist context of peacebuilding operations and the overwhelming presence of ‘internationals’ on the scene, the ‘local’ factor might easily be seen as being subsumed at best and totally negated at worst. Operations of peacebuilding can be interpreted as being driven by a colonial rationality wherein the imperative to govern precedes and informs practices on the ground. One response is to suggest ‘hybrid agency’ as a form of articulation that questions a dichotomous representation of the local and the liberal/universal. Another is to suggest that peacebuilding practices aim towards capacity-building and hence the enablement of agency in the post-conflict context. The article argues for a conceptualisation of agency that takes its starting point from the ‘international’ as a distinctive location of politics. Doing so enables a differentiation; on the one hand the colonial rationality that plac...

The Weak Rationality Principle in Economics

Abstract: The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule for how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any 'understanding' social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing are discussed. It is also explained why it makes sense to use a micro-foundation and, therefore, to employ the rationality assumption in economic models. Then, we discuss whether the anomalies of individual behaviour as highlighted in modern behavioural economics impair the applicability of the weak rationality principle. This is not the case. We conclude with some remarks on handling the problems of 'free will' as well as 'weakness of the will' within the economic approach.

Why are dreams interesting for philosophers? The example of minimal phenomenal selfhood, plus an agenda for future research.

Abstract: This metatheoretical paper develops a list of new research targets by exploring particularly promising interdisciplinary contact points between empirical dream research and philosophy of mind. The central example is the MPS-problem. It is constituted by the epistemic goal of conceptually isolating and empirically grounding the phenomenal property of "minimal phenomenal selfhood," which refers to the simplest form of self-consciousness. In order to precisely describe MPS, one must focus on those conditions that are not only causally enabling, but strictly necessary to bring it into existence. This contribution argues that research on bodiless dreams, asomatic out-of-body experiences, and full-body illusions has the potential to make decisive future contributions. Further items on the proposed list of novel research targets include differentiating the concept of a "first-person perspective" on the subcognitive level; investigating relevant phenomenological and neurofunctional commonalities between mind-wandering and dreaming; comparing the functional depth of embodiment across dream and wake states; and demonstrating that the conceptual consequences of cognitive corruption and systematic rationality deficits in the dream state are much more serious for philosophical epistemology (and, perhaps, the methodology of dream research itself) than commonly assumed. The paper closes by specifying a list of potentially innovative research goals that could serve to establish a stronger connection between dream research and philosophy of mind.