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Rationality

About: Rationality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 20459 publications have been published within this topic receiving 617787 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 1985-Synthese
TL;DR: The authors argue that empirical evidence could not possibly support the conclusion that people are systematically irra tional, and thus the experiments which allegedly show that they are must be either flawed or misinterpreted.
Abstract: Aristotle thought man was a rational animal. From his time to ours, however, there has been a steady stream of writers who have dissented from this sanguine assessment. For Bacon, Hume, Freud, or D. H. Lawrence, rationality is at best a sometimes thing. On their view, episodes of rational inference and action are scattered beacons on the irrational coastline of human history. During the last decade or so, these impressionistic chroniclers of man's cognitive foibles have been joined by a growing group of experimental psychologists who are subjecting human reasoning to careful empirical scrutiny. Much of what they have found would appall Aristotle. Human subjects, it would appear, regularly and systematically invoke inferential and judgmental strate gies ranging from the merely invalid to the genuinely bizarre. Recently, however, there have been rumblings of a reaction brewing a resurgence of Aristotelian optimism. Those defending the sullied name of human reason have been philosophers, and their weapons have been conceptual analysis and epistemological argument. The central thrust of their defense is the claim that empirical evidence could not possibly support the conclusion that people are systematically irra tional. And thus the experiments which allegedly show that they are must be either flawed or misinterpreted. In this paper I propose to take a critical look at these philosophical defenses of rationality. My sympathies, I should note straightaway, are squarely with the psychologists. My central thesis is that the philoso phical arguments aimed at showing irrationality cannot be experiment ally demonstrated are mistaken. Before considering these arguments, however, we would do well to set out a few illustrations of the sort of empirical studies which allegedly show that people depart from nor mative standards of rationality in systematic ways. This is the chore that will occupy us in the following section.

147 citations

Book
03 Mar 1988
TL;DR: Nandy as discussed by the authors presents an outsider's view of Western norms of progress, rationality and maturity, and stresses the importance of considering the world views of non-modern cultures in the Third World, rather than relying on the prosperous West for our definitions of progress.
Abstract: This book is a collection of six essays, presenting an outsider's view of Western norms of progress, rationality and maturity. Drawing heavily on the ideas contained in two earlier volumes - At the Edge of Psychology (1980), and The Intimate Enemy (1983), Nandy stresses the importance of considering the world views of `non-modern' cultures in the Third World, rather than relying on the prosperous West for our definitions of progress. Students and teachers of economics, politics, sociology and Third World studies.

147 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper describes two paradoxes of game-theoretic reasoning – one concerning backward induction, the other iterated weak dominance.
Abstract: Paradoxes of game-theoretic reasoning have played an important role in spurring developments in interactive epistemology, the area in game theory that studies the role of the players' beliefs, knowledge, etc. This paper describes two such paradoxes - one concerning backward induction, the other iterated weak dominance. We start with the basic epistemic condition of "rationality and common belief of rationality" in a game, describe various 'refinements' of this condition that have been proposed, and explain how these refinements resolve the two paradoxes. We will see that a unified epistemic picture of game theory emerges. We end with some new foundational questions uncovered by the epistemic program.

147 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the influence of pre-existing individual differences in social value orentations, or preferences for certain patterns of outcomes to oneself and others (McClintock, 1978), on perceptions of rationality in a social dilemma and found a strong relationship between expectations of other's cooperation and own cooperative behaviour when the other was described as intelligent.
Abstract: The present study examines the influence of pre-existing individual differences in social value orentations, or preferences for certain patterns of outcomes to oneself and others (McClintock, 1978), on perceptions of rationality in a social dilemma. In Experiment 1 conducted in Groningen (the Netherlands), it was found that people with pro-social orientations expected more cooperation from another described as intelligent than from another described as unintelligent, whereas individualists and competitors expected relatively more cooperation from another described as unintelligent. The cross-cultural generalizability of this finding was examined and supported in Experiment 2 which was conducted in Santa Barbara (U.S.A.). Results from both studies are consistent with the Goal Prescribes Rationality Principle (Van Lange, Liebrand and Kuhlman, 1990) which assumes that people with pro-social (cooperative) orientations would perceive rationality in social dilemmas primarily from the collective perspective, whereas individualists and competitors would take a strong egocentric perspective on rationality. In addition, we found a strong relationship between expectations of other's cooperation and own cooperative behaviour when the other was described as intelligent. The strength of this relationship was reduced, particularly for individualists and competitors, when the other person was described as unintelligent.

147 citations

Book
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the dance of change and the music and its features in order to order order in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, USA and discuss the contribution of structure, content, and focus to ordering.
Abstract: I Theorizing 1 Rationalities 2 The Dance of Change3 The Music and Its Features4 Technology's Ways: Imaginative Variations II Case Studies Overview of the Case Studies 5 Western City and Police 6 Metropolitan Washington and Police7 Boston and Police III Appraising 8 Contributions of Structure, Content and Focus to Ordering9 Seeing and Saying in the Boston CAM10 Generalization Epilogue Appendix A: Data and Methods Appendix B: Professional "Faery Tales" and Serious Organizational Ethnography Compared NotesReferencesIndexAbout the Author

147 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023921
20221,963
2021645
2020689
2019682
2018753