Rationality

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

From reflection to practical reflexivity: experiential learning as lived experience

Abstract: Experience-based views of management education became fashionable in the 1970s in reaction to the highly rational and analytic methods that had dominated in North America (and thus most of management education elsewhere) since the Gordon/Howell report in 1957. The reaction was driven partly by the libertarian ideas of the 1960s which set themselves up in political opposition to the technocratic rationality of ‘big business’ (Schumacher, 1973; Nader, 1973), and partly from a logical analysis of its own regarding the increasing rate of change and uncertainty in business and social life (Toffler, 1970). Thus it was argued by a number of authors (Livingston, 1971; Hayes and Abernathy, 1980; Peters, 1987) that the application of generalized problem solving techniques to any situation fails to consider that many of the problems tackled by practitioners are ill-defined, unique, emotive and complex. According to Schfln, instead of leading to more effective practice, education based solely on rational methods has resulted in: ‘a crisis of legitimacy rooted both in their perceived failure to live up to their own norms and in their perceived incapacity to help society achieve its objectives and solve its problems’ (1983, p. 39).

After Rationality, What? A Review of Responses to Paradigm Breakdown

Abstract: Rationality is identified as the paradigm that dominated planning and related disciplines until the mid-1950s. Subsequent attacks on the rational model revealed anomalies that have led to loss of professional identity and ambiguous roles for planners. Responses to paradigm breakdown include “the ritual response,” “avoidance,” “abandonment,” and search for a new paradigm. Each response is described and examined for its potential to yield a usable replacement for the rational model. No such replacement appears imminent, but a contingent approach within the framework of a new meta-theory of decision making may offer the best prospects.

Constitutional Rights, Balancing, and Rationality

Abstract: The article begins with an outline of the balancing construction as devel- oped by the German Federal Constitutional court since the Luth decision in 1958. It then takes up two objections to this approach raised by Jurgen Habermas. The first maintains that balancing is both irrational and a danger for rights, depriving them of their normative power. The second is that balancing takes one out of the realm of right and wrong, correctness and incorrectness, and justification, and, thus, out of the realm of the law. The article attempts to counter these objections by showing that there exists a rational structure of balancing that can be made explicit by a "Law of Balancing" and a "Disproportionality Rule." These rules show, first, that balancing is not a danger for rights but, on the contrary, a necessary means of lending them protection, and second, that balancing is not an alternative to argumentation but an indispensable form of rational practical discourse. I. Two Constructions of Constitutional Rights Modern democratic constitutions comprise two classes or categories of norms. The first class contains norms that constitute and organize legisla- tion, adjudication, and administration. The central theme of these norms is empowerment. The second class contains norms that constrain and direct public power. Norms conferring constitutional rights are most prominent here. This dichotomy seems to be universally valid, at least in the universe of democratic constitutions. The broad-based validity of this thesis is owing to its highly abstract character. Just below this level of abstractness, differ- ent possibilities come into play. This concerns public power as well as indi- vidual rights. Here I will consider only the latter. There are two main constructions of constitutional rights: one is narrow and strict, a second is broad and comprehensive. The first of these can be called the rule construction, the second, the principle construction. These two constructions are nowhere realized in pure form, but they represent

The sociology of money : economics, reason & contemporary society

Abstract: Preface. Introduction: On the Nature of Money. Part I:. 1. The Political Economy of Money. 2. Money and the State. 3. Cultural Aspects of the Mature Money Economy. 4. Money and the Social System. Part II:. 5. The Politics of International Monetary Integration. 6. Money in Postmodern Economics. 7. High Modernity, Rationality and Trust. 8. Monetary Analysis in Social Theory. Bibliography. Index.