Rationality

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

A Cognitive Theory of Deterrence

Abstract: Prospect theory is an empirical model of choice that stands as the leading alternative to rationality for explaining decisions under conditions of risk. While many still defend the assumption of rationality as an appropriate starting point for the construction of international relations theory - deterrence theory especially - there is growing support for models of international politics grounded in the actual capacities of real-world decisionmakers. This article accepts that standard depictions of deterrence incentives capture much of the essential character of deterrent relationships. However, it substitutes cognitive assumptions in place of traditional rational choice. Using prospect theory, the article reconsiders three typical deterrence games. The new model of military deterrence put forth unearths a set of conditions that are required for successful deterrence and uncovers a set of causes for deterrence failures that run counter to conventional understanding.

Reason and Rationality

Abstract: Over the past few decades, reasoning and rationality have been the focus of enormous interdisciplinary attention, attracting interest from philosophers, psychologists, economists, statisticians and anthropologists, among others. The widespread interest in the topic reflects the central status of reasoning in human affairs. But it also suggests that there are many different though related projects and tasks which need to be addressed if we are to attain a comprehensive understanding of reasoning.

Morality and action

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Moral and other realisms: some initial difficulties 2. Abortion: identity and loss 3. The right to threaten and the right to punish 4. Reply to Brook 5. Truth and explanation in ethics 6. Reflection and the loss of moral knowledge: Williams on objectivity 7. Actions, intentions, and consequences: the doctrine of doing and allowing 9. Actions, intentions, and consequences: the doctrine of double effect 9. Reply to Boyle's 'who is entitled to double effect?' 10. The puzzle of the self-torturer 11. Rationality and the human good 12. Putting rationality in its place.

Chapter 1 The game of chess

Abstract: Publisher Summary The game of chess has sometimes been referred to as the Drosophila of artificial intelligence and cognitive science research– a standard task that serves as a test bed for ideas about the nature of intelligence and computational schemes for intelligent systems. Both machine intelligence –—how to program a computer to play good chess (artificial intelligence)— and human intelligence — how to understand the processes that human masters use to play good chess (cognitive science)— are discussed in the chapter but with emphasis on computers. Classical game theory has been preoccupied almost exclusively with substantive rationality. Procedural rationality is concerned with procedures for finding good actions, taking into account not only the goal and objective situation, but also the knowledge and the computational capabilities and limits of the decision maker. The only nontrivial theory of chess is a theory of procedural rationality in choosing moves. The study of procedural or computational rationality is relatively new, having been cultivated extensively only since the advent of the computer (but with precursors, e.g., numerical analysis). It is central to such disciplines as artificial intelligence and operations research. Difficulty in chess is computational difficulty. Playing a good game of chess consists in using the limited computational power (human or machine) that is available to do as well as possible. This might mean investing a great deal of computation in examining a few variations, or investing a little computation in each of a large number of variations. Neither strategy can come close to exhausting the whole game tree.

How to Build a Person: A Prolegomenon

Abstract: From the Publisher: Building a person has been an elusive goal in artificial intelligence. This failure, John Pollock argues, is because the problems involved are essentially philosophical; what is needed for the construction of a person is a physical system that mimics human rationality. Pollock describes an exciting theory of rationality and its partial implementation in OSCAR, a computer system whose descendants will literally be persons. In developing the philosophical superstructure for this bold undertaking, Pollock defends the conception of man as an intelligent machine and argues that mental states are physical states and persons are physical objects as described in the fable of Oscar, the self conscious machine. Pollock brings a unique blend of philosophy and artificial intelligence to bear on the vexing problem of how to construct a physical system that thinks, is self conscious, has desires, fears, intentions, and a full range of mental states. He brings together an impressive array of technical work in philosophy to drive theory construction in AI. The result is described in his final chapter on "cognitive carpentry." John Pollock is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. A Bradford Book