Rationality

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

Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints

Abstract: Common sense suggests that it is always preferable to have more options than fewer, and better to have more knowledge than less. This provocative book argues that, very often, common sense fails. Sometimes it is simply the case that less is more; people may benefit from being constrained in their options or from being ignorant. The three long essays that constitute this book revise and expand the ideas developed in Jon Elster's classic study Ulysses and the Sirens. It is not simply a new edition of the earlier book, though; many of the issues merely touched on before are explored here in much more detail. Elster shows how seemingly disparate examples which limit freedom of action reveal similar patterns, so much so that he proposes a new field of study: constraint theory. The book is written in Elster's characteristically vivid style and will interest professionals and students in philosophy, political science, psychology, and economics.

Organization Studies and Epistemic Coloniality in Latin America: Thinking Otherness from the Margins:

Abstract: This paper discusses the current state of Organization Studies in Latin America, disclosing the epistemic coloniality that prevails in the region. Adopting an approach based on the recognition of the relevance of the geopolitical space as place of enunciation, the paper sustains the relevance of the ‘outside’ and ‘otherness’ to understand organizational realities in America Latina. The argument is developed in three sections. The first section establishes the main characteristic of the development of Organization Studies in Latin America as its tendency towards falsification and imitation of the knowledge generated in the Centre. The second section recognizes the role played by the term ‘organization’ as an artifice that facilitates the comparison of different realities through their structural variables, but also the inability of this term to recognize any reality that escapes instrumental rationality and the logic of the market. It also articulates the increasing importance of such a concept in the cont...

Path independence, rationality, and social choice

Abstract: The paper provides several axiomatizations of the concept of "path independence" as applied to choice functions defined over finite sets. The axioms are discussed in terms of their relationship to "rationality" postulates and their meaning with respect to social choice models. IN ANSWER to critics of the first edition of Social Choice and Individual Values, Arrow advanced in the second edition ajustification for imposing his "consistency" or "rationality" conditions which had not previously appeared, explicitly, in the social choice literature [2, p. 120]. He argued that the rationality conditions were necessary in order for social choices to be independent of the path of choice. He provided no real elaboration on the point. Perhaps he felt no explanation was necessary, since much of the social choice literature, especially those papers which deal with cycles, implicitly place a premium on some type of path-independence property. The purpose of this paper is to report some results which bear on the meaning and usefulness of this type of property. Specifically, it is shown that path independence is implied by, but does not imply rational choice. The importance of the observation is threefold. First, if path independence, rather than rationality, is desired as a property of social choice, the stronger rationality conditions need not be imposed. One result of this relaxation is that the immediate impossibility result discovered by Arrow is avoided. Welfare economists then are free to explore the possible applications of the tools he provided. Secondly, the observations made raise issues pertaining to the reasons for investigating mathematical properties like path independence in the first place. Thirdly, it is shown that the lines which separate rationality properties, which induce immediate impossibility results, from path-independence properties are very thinly drawn. We will proceed as follows. Immediately below, in Section 2, a survey of the interpretations of the symbols is given. A glossary is also added at the end. Section 3 provides a brief summary of the arguments which have been advanced in support of "rationality conditions" in the case of social choice. These are presented in order that they can be separated from those arguments which are

Farewell to Criteriology

Abstract: Criteriology is the quest for permanent or stable criteria of rationality founded in the desire for objectivism and the belief that we must somehow transcend the limitations to knowing that are the inevitable consequence of our sociotemporal perspective as knowers. The project of criteriology has, in turn, shaped our way of thinking about the epistemology of social inquiry. This article offers a way of redefining social inquiry without recourse to criteriology. It presents a view of social inquiry as practical philosophy and discusses the vision that enables that practice, the conditions that sustain that practice, and the place of such a practice in society.

Towards Design Theory and Expandable Rationality: The Unfinished Program of Herbert Simon

Abstract: It is said that Herbert Simon would have described himself as follows : «I am a monomaniac. What I am a monomaniac about is decision making ». In spite of its shares of legend and humour, this self-portrait deeply reflects the main logic of Herbert Simon’s works. From his early papers on administrative behaviour to his last investigations on thought and learning, Simon kept a same goal : to explain complex and mysterious human behaviour by simple and constrained, yet informed, decision rules. « Bounded rationality » was the name he gave to a research orientation wich rejected the maximizing behaviour assumed by classic economics. But beyond this critical aim, Simon attempted to build an empirically grounded theory of human problem solving. A theory that was intended to settle the foundation stone of « behavioural economics ».