Concept Of Rationality Research Articles

The coevolution of technology, markets, and culture: the challenging case of AI

AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) is at the center of economic, social, political, and ethical debate. For the first time in human history, since the appearance of writing, a new type of “intelligence” is impacting the very nature of social relationships. New technologies are not only changing the operating model of markets and value chains in an accelerated way but also in how information is generated and processed, how labor, social relations, and culture evolve, etc. In this paper, we pursue two main goals. First, to set up an analytical framework in which cognitive, technical, and cultural dynamics are intertwined with the processes of deployment of economic action. Secondly, we utilize this framework to explore some key features and challenges of AI and its impact on coevolutionary processes at the cognitive, market, and cultural levels. We devote special attention to the consequences that AI may have for the concept of (economic) rationality and the formation of action plans. We conclude that AI will massively enhance agents’ spaces of action by improving efficiency and exploring new possibilities. However, AI will not change the nature of human action and the structure of the evolution of the economic system.

War and Peace Literacy of Social Studies Teacher Candidates: A Metaphorical Research

The aim of this study is to reveal the literacy levels and metaphors of Social Studies teacher candidates regarding the concepts of war and peace taught in secondary school. The research may be important in terms of revealing how Social Studies teacher candidates interpret the concepts of war and peace and how they perceive these concepts metaphorically. Phenomenology, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 60 teacher candidates studying in the 4th year of the Social Studies Teaching undergraduate program of two state universities. In the research, it was determined what meanings Social Studies teacher candidates attributed to the concepts of war and peace. The collected metaphors were classified according to the metaphors used by teacher candidates. In addition, the resulting metaphors were grouped around certain common themes. Accordingly, the prospective teachers who participated in the research created 33 metaphors regarding the concept of war and 30 metaphors regarding the concept of peace. According to the research results, the most frequently repeated war metaphor is “massacre”, followed by metaphors such as “murder”, “apocalypse”, “grim reaper” and “virus”. The most frequently repeated peace metaphor is “breathing”, followed by Metaphors such as “peace”, “friendship”, “mother” and “obligation” were followed. Metaphors related to the concepts of war and peace were grouped under two categories: “positive” and “negative”. While metaphors about war were concentrated in the “negative” category, metaphors about peace were observed to be concentrated in the “positive” category. When the participants’ reasons for the decision to go to war were examined, the most recurring answers were “if the future and security of the country is in danger” and “to guarantee peace”. It has been determined that Social Studies teacher candidates who are new to the profession view war as a negative concept and peace as a positive concept. On the other hand, the fact that they create simple and easy justifications for deciding on war can be interpreted as their failure to internalize peace sufficiently.

Temporal-spatial and pedagogical flexibility in distance education

Flexibility in distance education is often regarded as an inherently positive concept. Taking a more critical approach, this article distinguishes between temporal-spatial flexibility, defined as enabling students to choose the time, pace and place of their studies, and pedagogical flexibility, defined as offering education that is tailored to the pedagogical needs and preferences of students. This study aims to investigate pedagogical flexibility in distance education characterized by a high degree of temporal-spatial flexibility. Focus group interviews with 46 adult distance educators were conducted. Themes that explained reasons for lower and higher degrees of pedagogical flexibility were identified. It was found that pedagogical flexibility was challenging to achieve in a setting characterized by high temporal-spatial flexibility. In conclusion, a model of temporal-spatial and pedagogical flexibility is discussed. It can be used to guide research and practice in understanding flexibility in distance education as a complex and nuanced concept.

Phenomenological approach in psychotherapy

The article discusses the problems of interaction between psychotherapy and such a direction of philosophy as phenomenology. The basic principles of the phenomenological method are considered in the context of their application in psychotherapy. The author sees the main problems in the isolation of related fields of humanistic knowledge from each other, in the continuing commitment of Russian psychotherapy to an exclusively natural-scientific positivist concept of health and illness, and in the dominance of biologically oriented approaches. This is reflected both in the interpretation of the phenomenological method in domestic psychiatry, and in the use of phenomenology in various psychotherapeutic fields. The solution to this problem may be a deeper acquaintance of specialists with the philosophical foundations and methodological principles of the phenomenological method, interdisciplinary dialogue, expansion of the humanitarian component of professional training, which corresponds to the objectives of the further development of domestic psychotherapy.

A Survey on the Current Situation and Improvement Path of Positive Psychological Quality among Vocational Undergraduate Students

Vocational undergraduate education has a clear vocational education attribute, carrying the heavy burden of delivering excellent vocational talents to society. Psychological health education in vocational undergraduate colleges must deepen positive educational concepts, stimulate students’ potential, cultivate positive and upward psychological qualities, and effectively achieve a balanced education. At present, research on the positive psychological qualities of vocational colleges’ undergraduate students is mostly at the theoretical level, with little empirical or practical research. This article mainly focuses on the first to fourth-year students of a vocational undergraduate college in Jinan City, analyzes the current status of their positive psychological qualities, and reveals the influence of demographic variables on the positive psychological qualities of vocational undergraduate students. The study proposes targeted new paths to enhance the positive psychological qualities of vocational undergraduate students, further enriching empirical research on the cultivation of positive psychological qualities.

Misinformation, observational equivalence and the possibility of rationality

ABSTRACT In vice epistemology, bad epistemic outcomes, such as maintaining false beliefs, are interpreted as indicators of blameworthy irrationality. Conversely, a growing trend in philosophical psychology advocates for environmentalist explanations, suggesting these outcomes emerge because rational cognitive processes of faultless individuals falter due to polluted environmental inputs. Building on concrete examples, I first offer a systematic analysis of the relative explanatory merits of that environmentalist project. I then use this analysis to advance the rationality debate, which has recently been identified as stagnating due to an observational equivalence between environmentalist and vice accounts. Although the conceptual imprecision of vice epistemology has frequently been critiqued, the framework developed here reveals that environmentalism is (also) unable to meet various theoretical desiderata. I show why this is so and argue that, to make progress, environmentalism needs a more substantive conception of epistemic rationality. To this end, I propose that a closer engagement with questions of cognitive agency – how rational creatures can “make up” their minds about what to believe – could enable the necessary progress.

An introduction to key ecological concepts, financial opportunities, and risks underpinning aspirations for nature positive.

Global biodiversity is in decline, and businesses and society are being required to urgently create new operating models to ameliorate the crisis. Among the strategies proposed to do this, implementing the concept of nature positive has captured worldwide attention. Critical to its success will be effective collaboration between ecologists and businesspeople, driven by a shared understanding of key nature positive terminology, concepts, and risks. To this end, we introduce three core aspects: the ecological concepts in the definition of nature positive (health, abundance, diversity, and resilience), a typology of financial instruments that may be applied to achieving nature positive, and an overview of risks to biodiversity and society. The pivotal findings include that ecological complexity and uncertainty belie the simplicity of the definition of nature positive and that managing risk requires embedding aspirations into existing and emerging biodiversity conservation and restoration science and policy. Although it is challenging, nature positive deserves pursuit.

Was there ʿAql before Adam? On Rationality and Adamic Exceptionalism

Many Islamic positions have emerged in response to the theory of evolution. One particular response is the Adamic exceptionalism, which asserts that although Adam is exempt from the process of evolution, there were still other “humans” existing before or contemporaneous to him who were natural products of evolution. The argument for the humanness of the pre-Adamic human-like creatures is hinged on the supposed shared rationality between them. On this position, Shoaib Malik is of the opinion that it is the most reconciliatory solution for Sunnī theology and scientific findings. Hence, this article aims to conduct a paradigmatic comparison between the concept of rationality in anthropology and the concept of ʿaql in the worldview of Islam with special reference to Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas. Based on his articulation of the conception of man within the worldview of Islam, anthropology’s “rationality” can be said to amount to only some fractions of what is known as the practical reason in Islam. This study concludes that all human-like creatures prior to Adam are not proper humans as defined in the name insān.

Conceptual Metaphors in Psychotherapeutic Discourse (Using the Example of the Works of Art by Irwin Yalom and Ken Kesey)

Introduction. The article discusses the role and features of the conceptual metaphor in psychotherapeutic dis-course using the examples of fiction works by Irwin Yalom “The Schopenhauer Cure”, “Mommy and the Meaning of Life” and Ken Kesey “Over the Cuckoo's Nest” (translated by 2003 by D. Shepelev). The purpose of the article is to illustrate the metaphorical language of psychotherapeutic discourse (PD), involved in the fiction works. The widespread use of metaphor makes it possible to distinguish PD into an independent one. The relevance of linguistic analysis lies in expanding the language of discourses of helping professions.Methodology and sources. The article is based on the provisions of the theory of conceptual metaphor formulated by J. By Lakoff and M. Johnson. The methodological basis of the analysis are the works about PD and the metaphorical language of psychotherapy (I.V. Karasik, A.R. Markin, M.S. Grineva, E.V. Ermolaeva, etc.). Results and discussion. The article describes the characteristics of PD, describes the types of conceptual metaphors that are used in psychotherapeutic discourse based on the analysis of the fiction works. Among the main conceptual metaphors are the metaphors “dispute is war”, “time is money”, “psyche as a machine”, orientation metaphors, where UP is associated with the concept of mental health, well-being, altruism, strength, high status, rationality, and DOWN – with images of illness, failure, low social status, emotionality. Conclusion. The study shows the specifics of PD, primarily related to its metaphorical language. The examples of the conceptual metaphors highlighted by J. By Lakoff and M. Johnson illustrate the specific feature of PD of I. Yalom and K. Kesey.

Schools don’t care: Rearticulating care ethics in education

Schools self-identify as caring communities and teach young children to be caring for each other. But schools also teach other contradictory and competing messages, such as individualism and self-reliance, rationalist concepts of justice and meritocracy, and other neoliberal approaches to life and community. Furthermore, while endorsements of care are commonly found in educational institutions, caring is not always (or even often) practiced or regarded as a major aim in schools, in contrast with human capital approaches to youth development. This essay examines how schools do and don’t care. At its core is the rearticulation of care ethics in education, and what caring means within the contemporary field. Over time, enthusiasm for care ethics has peaked and waned. It begins with a brief explanation of what caring is within the field of care ethics, before it considers how caring is ideally involved in education. In this case, discourses of care ethics and caring in education can be coopted against the writings of care ethicists to complement positive psychology, socially conservative character education and civic education, and individualistic and neoliberal approaches to education. As a result, schools can appear to care, but do so in highly distorted ways. These distortions, I argue, do not reveal fundamental limitations or flaws within care ethics approaches to care. Instead, they demand a reconsideration and rearticulation of care ethics in the contemporary education landscape: a context which has changed considerably since debates and articulations of care ethics in the 1980s.

Speaking Well and Feeling Good: Age-Related Differences in the Affective Language of Resting State Thought

Despite the prevalence and importance of resting state thought for daily functioning and psychological well-being, it remains unclear how such thoughts differ between young and older adults. Age-related differences in the affective tone of resting state thoughts, including the affective language used to describe them, could be a novel manifestation of the positivity effect, with implications for well-being. To examine this possibility, a total of 77 young adults (M = 24.9 years, 18–35 years) and 74 cognitively normal older adults (M = 68.6 years, 58–83 years) spoke their thoughts freely during a think-aloud paradigm across two studies. The emotional properties of spoken words and participants’ retrospective self-reported affective experiences were computed and examined for age differences and relationships with psychological well-being. Study 1, conducted before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed that older adults exhibited more diversity of positive, but not negative, affectively tinged words compared to young adults and more positive self-reported thoughts. Despite being conducted virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, study 2 replicated many of study 1’s findings, generalizing results across samples and study contexts. In an aggregated analysis of both samples, positive diversity predicted higher well-being beyond other metrics of affective tone, and the relationship between positive diversity and well-being was not moderated by age. Considering that older adults also exhibited higher well-being, these results hint at the possibility that cognitively healthy older adults’ propensity to experience more diverse positive concepts during natural periods of restful thought may partly underlie age-related differences in well-being and reveal a novel expression of the positivity effect.

The Relationship between Morality and Religion in Kant's Philosophy

Kant delves into the relationship between morality and religion, particularly how traditional morality is integrated into practical reason and how the moral law is seen as a self-imposed rule of free practical reason. Kant distinguishes between two forms of religion: religion within the boundaries of pure reason and revealed religion. The former is based on the rational conception that the establishment of a supreme being ensures the supreme good; the latter emphasizes the independence and authority of reason in matters of faith. In his moral philosophy, both beliefs are crucial, not only in helping to sustain the moral life, but also in the way that both reason's conception of God and belief in revealed religion can positively affect the moral life.

The Dialectics of Modernity and Tradition: A Decolonial Critique of the University’s Role in Shaping Social Consciousness

Positioned at the intersection of reason and practical life, the study dissecs the university system’s dual role in upholding and contesting the hegemonic narratives of modernity. Through a dialectical analysis, the paper argues how universities have unconsciously perpetuated modern Western concepts of progress and rationality, often overshadowing traditional and indigenous ways of understanding. The article highlights the imperative for universities to undergo a decolonial transformation, integrating contemporary and traditional epistemologies in a dynamic synergy fostering a more encompassing and inclusive societal awareness. The article recommends that academic institutions actively integrate and value diverse epistemologies, challenging long-held Western-centric pedagogies for a more inclusive educational environment. Therefore, dissecting the nuanced interplay between modernity and tradition within universities, this study hopefully will contribute to a deeper understanding of decolonial processes in shaping more holistic and representative knowledge systems in academia.

Developing guidelines for program design, practice, and research toward a positive and well-being education practice

ABSTRACT Positive education, a growing field that integrates positive psychology principles into educational settings, has gained momentum over the past 15 years. The field, however, faces challenges in translating positive psychology concepts into teachers’ professional practice and maintaining the quality of programs. To ensure the effectiveness and credibility of positive education, it is essential to develop clear guidelines for program design, practice, and research. This article presents proposed guidelines that emphasize the importance of a solid scientific foundation, multidimensional approach, embedding positive education into school culture, and ethical values. These guidelines provide a roadmap for promoting rigorous, relevant, high-quality research and practice in positive education. By adhering to these guidelines and fostering stakeholder collaboration, positive education has the potential to thrive, reaching more students and communities worldwide, ultimately transforming the educational landscape for the betterment of all.

Non-functional demand model vs functional demand model: prospects for competitiveness in a transforming world

The purpose of the article is to analyse the problem of changing the relationship between non-functional and functional demand. The main task of the presented research is to define the most competitive model (based on functional or non-functional demand) of consumer behaviour in the conditions of the economy of the 20s of the XXI century. To solve this problem, we studied the structure of consumer demand: functional and non-functional ones. We identified the features of non-functional demand, and considered the reasons for its expansion in modern society. Moreover, paper highlights fixing changes in consumer orientations, which resulted in the search for satisfaction not only of material needs, but also aesthetic, emotional, and social ones. It allowed us to formulate a conclusion on the existence of objective reasons for the spread of non-functional demand. Within the framework of non-functional demand, we perform an analysis of origin and expansion of the downshifting phenomenon through the transformation of the basis of functional demand. The authors believe that qualitative changes in global socio-economic development have revolutionized the theoretical concepts of rationality, which are the basis of the functional demand model. Nevertheless, authors criticise the interpretation of downshifting as a model of irrational consumer behaviour, and put forward a hypothesis on the legitimacy of this new phenomenon to be analysed within the framework of functional demand. The authors consider the assumption of the possibility of changing the objectives of society to be a condition for the realization of this hypothesis. it can cause the transformation of «efficiency» concept over the past 300 years. Paper forecasts increasing of non-economic goals rationality, cooperation, mutual benefits, and the coupling of knowledge and technology to moral, cultural, and ethical principles and norms. As a result, in the contrary to the widespread assessment of downshifting as a deviant form of consumer behavior, there was put forward hypothesis considering downshifting as a part of classical consumer choice matrix, taking into account the transformation of this matrix itself.

Evolved and Cultural Intuitions. Highly Speculative Remarks on the Origins of our Sense of Fairness

The question of whether the sense of fairness constitutes an exclusively human trait has been answered mostly from two polar positions: the first one unambiguously affirms such exclusivity, thus denying the relevance of cognitive ethology to understand our evaluations of justice; the second one, on the contrary, postulates the existence of a (proto) sense of fairness in non-human animals, strongly related to ours, which would make cognitive ethology highly relevant to understand the mechanisms on which our evaluative practices are based. From a position of extreme caution in relation to the possibility of (eventually) offering concrete evidence in favor of innatist theses such as the one I will defend here, I will suggest that i) in line with the rupturist positions, it is possible to preserve the human exclusivity of the sense of justice, ii) in line with the continuist positions, the relevance of studies coming from cognitive ethology is guaranteed, insofar as (ex hypotesi) our evaluative practices often take as input innate psychological dispositions shared with other species. Finally, I will suggest that the concept of rationalization is central to determine in each case the possible articulation between innate dispositions and explicit justifications.

Exploring the nexus between law and morality: ethical considerations in legal studies

This publication aims to furnish a comprehensive examination of the ethical elements inherent in the roles of judges, prosecutors, attorneys, and notaries, elucidating their influence on the content of pertinent legal statutes governing the professional status of these legal vocations. The research employed various methodologies, encompassing the analytical method, the synthetic method, the method of scientific generalization, the method of interpreting legal norms, and the formal-logical method. The examination of legal understanding from a moral and ethical perspective involves the scrutiny of two principal concepts: the concept of natural law and the concept of legal positivism. This analytical framework enables the author to assert that a hallmark of progressive law-making lies in the adherence to not only the tenets of natural human rights but also moral and ethical principles during the formulation of legislative acts. In the context of the role and significance of ethics in the professional conduct of judges, prosecutors, attorneys, and notaries, the author undertakes an analysis of pertinent Ukrainian laws. It is asserted that within each of the examined legal enactments, ethical requirements assume a predominant role in the regulation of the legal status of practitioners in the specified legal professions. For instance, the non-violation of rules of professional ethics is delineated as a fundamental duty for specific categories of legal practitioners, with breaches serving as grounds not only for disciplinary consequences but also for the termination of the authority. Building upon the aforementioned observations, it is affirmed that the ethical dimensions of jurisprudence hold significance within contemporary legal discourse across three dimensions: adherence to moral and ethical principles in the crafting of legislative instruments; avoidance of breaches against ethical principles in the course of judicial, prosecutorial, attorney-at-law, and notarial activities; and the imperative that moral and ethical requirements remain inviolate during the preparation of legally consequential documents.

The unknowable Other and ethics of ungraspability: Education through the irrational

The insistence on knowledge accumulation in modern educational discourses has led to the formation of exclusive dichotomies in various forms, most tangibly observable in the division of people into ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘unknowledgeable’. What underlies this dichotomy is a conception of rationality based on which knowledge is seen as an ‘instrument’ which must necessarily result in a usable, profitable product. From a Levinasian perspective, the latter situation inevitably, if not purposefully, leads to the formation of the Other being located at the side of irrationality, hence an unnecessary entity within the knowledge economy. Analysing Werner Herzog’s film, The Enigma of Kasper Hauser’s (1974), this paper aims to show how irrationality, contrary to the belief of dominant educational/pedagogical discourses, can act as a source for creative thinking. The paper argues that by accepting the Other as the unknowable, we allow them to resort to their singularity as a source for imaginative thinking.

Mental health promotion and the positive concept of health: Navigating dilemmas

A prevailing view holds that the main goal of mental health promotion is to maintain and improve positive mental health, which is not merely defined by the absence of mental disorders, but by the presence of certain abilities. There are, however, challenges associated with this view that this paper aims to identify and explore. We start by highlighting three requirements for an ethically and politically justified mental health promotion scheme: (i) using a positive concept of mental health that (ii) respects the neutrality principle while (iii) not being overly permissive. Then, we argue that the WHO's positive concept of health violates (ii), and continue by exploring three philosophical accounts (i.e., Nordenfelt, 1995, 2017; Graham 2010; Wren-Lewis & Alexandrova, 2021) that could potentially provide a solution. We show that these face a dilemma of their own: they either violate (ii) or (iii), and they can rectify one issue only by violating the other. Considering the problems linked to the positive notion of health, the final section explores the alternate route of rejecting proposition (i) and instead embracing a negative concept of health. We argue that this option does not present a more advantageous solution. We conclude by highlighting the necessity for additional research to tackle the challenges we identified.

Что общего между теорией игр и рациональностью политико-правового учения Платона?

In the Republic, Plato presents an ideal social system that arises on the basis of acting together for the purposes of meeting the neetheir own interests. The rationalistic orientation dominates in Plato’s political and legal thought; it consists in the fact that, under the guidance of reason, the individual performs actions aimed at achieving happiness. From the point of view of game theory, in the same way, each subject of law strives to achieve the most profitable result and realize their own interests at the lowest cost. Thus, there is reason to believe that the theory of games in law arose as a natural result of the development of the philosophical concept of rationality. The Plato political and legal thought in this regard require detailed analysis, since it, like modern game theory, combine assumptions about the achievement of individual interests and bounded rationality. Taking into account the similarity of the fundamental premises, the subject of this article is relevant and significant not only in historical and theoretical terms, but for modern jurisprudence.