Rationality

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

Paradigms and Barriers: How Habits of Mind Govern Scientific Beliefs

Abstract: In "Paradigms and Barriers" Howard Margolis offers an innovative interpretation of Thomas S. Kuhn's landmark idea of "paradigm shifts, " applying insights from cognitive psychology to the history and philosophy of science. Building upon the arguments in his acclaimed "Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition," Margolis suggests that the breaking down of particular habits of mind--of critical "barriers"--is key to understanding the processes through which one model or concept is supplanted by another. Margolis focuses on those revolutionary paradigm shifts-- such as the switch from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican worldview--where challenges to entrenched habits of mind are marked by incomprehension or indifference to a new paradigm. Margolis argues that the critical problem for a revolutionary shift in thinking lies in the robustness of the habits of mind that reject the new ideas, relative to the habits of mind that accept the new ideas. Margolis applies his theory to famous cases in the history of science, offering detailed explanations for the transition from Ptolemaic to cosmological astronomy, the emergence of probability, the overthrow of phlogiston, and the emergence of the central role of experiment in the seventeenth century. He in turn uses these historical examples to address larger issues, especially the nature of belief formation and contemporary debates about the nature of science and the evolution of scientific ideas. Howard Margolis is a professor in the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and in the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of "Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality" and "Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition," both published by theUniversity of Chicago Press.

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.

How Organizations Engage with External Complexity: A Political Action Perspective

Abstract: This chapter offers a new insight into how organizations engage with external complexity. It applies a political action perspective that draws attention to the hitherto neglected question of how the relative power organizational leaders enjoy within their environments is significant for the actions they can take on behalf of their organizations when faced with external complexity. It identifies cognitive and relational complexity as two dimensions of the environment with which organizations have to engage. It proposes three modes whereby organizations may engage with environmental complexity that are conditioned by an organization’s power within its environment. It also considers the intention associated with each mode, as well as the implications of these modes of engagement on how an organization can learn about its environment and for the use of rationality and intuition in its strategic decision-making. The closing discussion considers how this analysis integrates complexity and political action perspectives in a way that contributes to theoretical development and provides the basis for a dynamic political co-evolutionary approach.

The Importance of Being Rational

Abstract: The Importance of Being Rational systematically defends a novel reasons-based account of rationality. The book’s central thesis is that what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. The book defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons. It is shown that these views not only help to support the book’s main thesis, they also help to resolve several important problems that are independent of rationality. The account of possession provides novel contributions to debates about what determines what we ought to do, and the account of correctly responding to reasons provides novel contributions to debates about causal theories of reacting for reasons. After defending views about possession and correctly responding, it is shown that the account of rationality can solve two difficult problems about rationality. The first is the New Evil Demon problem. The book argues that the account has the resources to show that internal duplicates necessarily have the same rational status. The second problem concerns the ‘normativity’ of rationality. Recently it has been doubted that we ought to be rational. The ultimate conclusion of the book is that the requirements of rationality are the requirements that we ultimately ought to comply with. If this is right, then rationality is of fundamental importance to our deliberative lives.