Notion Of Rationality Research Articles

Hobbes and Kant: Materialism and Rhetoric

This article examines the subtle nuances of Hobbes’s and Kant’s perspectives on rhetoric and materialism, contextualising them within the broader framework of political philosophy. Despite both philosophers being critics of rhetoric, their approaches exhibit notable divergences. Hobbes, who advocated for monarchy, criticized rhetoric from the perspective of a materialist anthropology influenced by Lucretius. However, he paradoxically employed rhetorical strategies in his new scientia civilis. Despite critiquing both Lucretian materialism and rhetoric, Kant incorporated certain rhetorical elements compatible with his philosophical framework, particularly in relation to Epicureanism. This study analyses their interpretations of paradiastole and the implications for the political thought. The argument is that both thinkers, in seeking a rational foundation for the political order, anchor their notions of rationality in Epicurean materialism, by reconfiguring rhetorical elements to suit their respective philosophies. The article elucidates Kant’s republican proclivities and his aspiration to maximize the citizens’ autonomy, which contrasts with Hobbes’s monarchical orientation. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the early modern political thought and its relevance to the contemporary republican and democratic theory.

Cognitive Biases in Sports: Examining Their Influence on Athletic Decision-Making

Traditional economic theory has long relied on the notion of rationality, which assumes that individuals will always make decisions leading to the optimal level of benefit or utility for themselves. However, behavioural economics, a subfield of economics, proposes that decision-making is not always rational, as emotions and cognitive biases influence it. In line with this, the dual processing system highlights how decisions may be made via one of two systems: the first characterised by relatively fast and nonconscious decision-making and the latter by slower and more conscious thinking. This research paper extends the literature on behavioural economics into the realm of sports, as it is a context where time is of the essence, and decisions need to be made on the spot. Primary research was conducted among a group of amateur athletes. The findings suggest that cognitive biases, including availability heuristic, anchoring bias, sunk cost fallacy, and framing bias, among others, influence the decisions made by athletes. The paper also proposes methods to overcome these biases.

On the Convergence of Swap Dynamics to Pareto-Optimal Matchings

We study whether Pareto-optimal stable matchings can be reached via pairwise swaps in one-to-one matching markets with initial assignments. We consider housing markets, marriage markets, and roommate markets as well as three different notions of swap rationality. Our main results are as follows. While it can be efficiently determined whether a Pareto-optimal stable matching can be reached when defining swaps via blocking pairs, checking whether this is the case for all such sequences is computationally intractable. When defining swaps such that all involved agents need to be better off, even deciding whether a Pareto-optimal stable matching can be reached via some sequence is intractable. This confirms and extends a conjecture made by Damamme, Beynier, Chevaleyre, and Maudet (2015) who have shown that convergence to a Pareto-optimal matching is guaranteed in housing markets with single-peaked preferences. We prove that in marriage and roommate markets, single-peakedness is not sufficient for this to hold, but the stronger restriction of one-dimensional Euclidean preferences is.

A Critical Comparison of SEUT and Prospect Theory

This article explores two key theories in behavioral finance: Subjective Expected Utility Theory (SEUT) and Prospect Theory, outlining their development as responses to historic economic paradoxes, challenging traditional notions of rationality in economic decision-making. SEUT extends the concepts of expected value and rational choice, incorporating individual utility functions and subjective probabilities. Despite its comprehensive approach, SEUT struggles to explain certain behaviors under risk and uncertainty. Prospect Theory, conceived by Kahneman and Tversky, offers an alternative. It introduces decision weighting, focusing on how individuals differently perceive gains and losses relative to a reference point. This theory explains human biases like loss aversion and framing effects, which SEUT overlooks. Through practical examples and empirical studies, the article demonstrates scenarios where human behavior deviates from SEUT predictions, influenced by psychological factors. However, both theories provide insights into economic decision-making, they have their respective strengths and limitations. The article suggests a more integrated approach, recognizing the complexities of human decision-making in economic contexts.

The Phenomenon of Debt-loving Behavior Through the Islamic Worldview Perspective and Literacy in the Digital Era

The existing cultural problem of debt-loving behavior is slowly growing as a societal norm driven by an insatiable need to satisfy an individual’s worldly desires. In Islam, it is considered more favorable to incur debt in situations of emergency. Consequently, researchers want to examine the factors contributing to the prevalence of debt-loving behavior in the contemporary digital era, alongside exploring the Islamic perspective on addressing this situation. This research employed a descriptive qualitative methodology. The findings indicate that multiple reasons contribute to an individual’s affinity for debt. These aspects include 1) excessive consumptive behavior; 2) impulsive buying tendencies; 3) perceiving debt as a societal trend; 4) lack of financial literacy; and 5) being influenced by one’s worldview. The prevalence of social media platforms has profoundly impacted modern lifestyles, promoting a lifestyle centered around seeking pleasure and gratification. Hedonism constitutes an integral component of capitalist rationality. The Islamic worldview diverges from the Western worldview in considering worldly life and the afterlife. The notion of Islamic rationality encompasses using mathematical logic, metaphysical, and spiritual elements to address worldly challenges. The worldview can be seen and utilized to comprehend and evaluate every human activity and behavior.
 Keywords: debt, Islam, worldview

The West German and Italian Left in the “Two Cultures” Debate: Trasnationalization and Localization (1964–1969)

Abstract This article delves into the transnational aspects of the “Two Cultures” debate initiated by the British chemist and writer C. P. Snow, and explores how Italian and West German intellectuals localized and translated aspects of the debate within their respective political landscapes. Snow described the relationship between science and the humanities, and attributed a unique social responsibility to science. Prominent leftist thinkers, including Gino Martinoli, Adriano Buzzati Traverso, Aldo Visalberghi, Giulio Preti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Karl Steinbuch, Hans Mohr, Hilde Domin, Jürgen Habermas, and Robert Jungk, engaged Snow's ideas, each formulating their stance on the role of science. These intellectuals were divided in their response. Some concurred with Snow, viewing scientific advancement as a cornerstone of social progress and considering the scientific ethos as a model for political emulation. Others, however, were critical, questioning the very notions of scientific progress, rationality, and modernization. This intellectual discourse foreshadowed the New Left's critique of scientism in the 1970s, a movement that significantly challenged the longstanding marriage between socialism and science.

Buber's Idea of Community

Abstract This article suggests that Buber's idea of the community may hint at an alternative to the more common foundations of political thought, usually grounded on notions of power or rationality. Showing how Buber's idea of the community developed from a neo-romantic form (in his early writings) to a principle informed by the dialogical dimension of human life (from I and Thou onwards), I will point out the vertical dimension of political life ensuing from Buber's discourse. A discussion of the theopolitical principle as expressed in Buber's Kingship of God will lead to the conclusion that, both descriptively and normatively, politics needs an openness to transcendence.

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF NEOPRAGMATISM SUCH AS THE PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT OF RICHARD RORTY

Firstly, I would like to provide an overview of the important traits and underlying characteristics of pragmatism, and then discuss the existence and establishment of Richard Rorty's thought on pragmatism, which was an earlier development of pragmatism classic. Richard Rorty's thoughts are also discussed with other modern philosophical thoughts in continental Europe, particularly on principles thought to be related to the principles of pragmatism. The possibilities of language, self and society are the principles discussed. It also mentions the inevitability of reality and objectivity of various points of view, thus giving rise to the need for attitudes of solidarity, or even the need for principles of solidarity in science. It is also mentioned that there are two notions of rationality, namely, objective, factual and obedient, as it is known so far, while the second meaning of rationality is cultured or civilized. Another part shown is the role of romantic poets and revolutionaries in breaking out of the impasse of language, thought and questions about the meaning of rationality itself. The other principle of truth is that it cannot be found, but must be done.

Approaching religious fatalism in cancer screening education.

Religious fatalism has for decades been pointed out as a barrier to cancer screening attendance and several studies suggest interventions to decrease fatalism, given its negative impact on the uptake of cancer screening. Our objective in this interdisciplinary exploration on religious fatalism in the context of cancer screening is to contribute to the increasing academic discussion on religious fatalism and cancer screening as well as the broader context of the intersection of religion and bioethics. Through an analysis of religious fatalism in light of the notion of rationality and images of God, we find resources and suggest trajectories for a more seriously and constructively approach to religious fatalism in cancer education. Our main thesis is that interventions do not necessarily have to decrease religious fatalism to increase screening.

Therapist experiencing of metaphor in person-centered relationships

ABSTRACT This study uses a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to better understand therapist experiencing of metaphor in non-directive person-centered relationships. Metaphor is ubiquitous in language. Meanwhile, literature in the field of psychotherapy posits it as indicative of a range of therapeutic attitudes, goals and outcomes. However, outside of noting its uses for communicating empathic understanding, and its function in process direction and diagnosis, the person-centered approach has no coherent account of it. Analysis of interviews with three therapists revealed experiencing related to relinquishing certainty, risking curiosity, and connecting briefly. These findings led to a brief consideration of the dialogical contact made when meeting in metaphor, with meaning noticed as an emergent quality of this contact. Whilst making a case for research that broadens the notion of rationality and embraces the complex ineffability of human experience, this article suggests some further questions, derived from the results, that might be addressed in future reflection.

Optimal nudging for cognitively bounded agents: A framework for modeling, predicting, and controlling the effects of choice architectures.

People's decisions often deviate from classical notions of rationality, incurring costs to themselves and society. One way to reduce the costs of poor decisions is to redesign the decision problems people face to encourage better choices. While often subtle, these nudges can have dramatic effects on behavior and are increasingly popular in public policy, health care, and marketing. Although nudges are often designed with psychological theories in mind, they are typically not formalized in computational terms and their effects can be hard to predict. As a result, designing nudges can be difficult and time-consuming. To address this challenge, we propose a computational framework for understanding and predicting the effects of nudges. Our approach builds on recent work modeling human decision making as adaptive use of limited cognitive resources, an approach called resource-rational analysis. In our framework, nudges change the metalevel problem the agent faces-that is, the problem of how to make a decision. This changes the optimal sequence of cognitive operations an agent should execute, which in turn influences their behavior. We show that models based on this framework can account for known effects of nudges based on default options, suggested alternatives, and information highlighting. In each case, we validate the model's predictions in an experimental process-tracing paradigm. We then show how the framework can be used to automatically construct optimal nudges, and demonstrate that these nudges improve people's decisions more than intuitive heuristic approaches. Overall, our results show that resource-rational analysis is a promising framework for formally characterizing and constructing nudges. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Opaque reciprocity: or theorising Glissant’s ‘right to opacity’ as a communication and language praxis in early childhood education

ABSTRACT In this article, the authors argue for what Édouard Glissant terms the ‘right to opacity’ in teaching and assessing communication and language skills in early childhood education (ECE). We draw from Glissant’s writing on Relation, and his interrelated concepts of ‘opacity’ and ‘transparency’, to consider two vignettes from sensory ethnographic research conducted in ECE settings: a special education classroom and a nursery. We contest the international emphasis on efficiency, clarity, and rationality in ECE communication and language provision as one informed by colonial and ableist logics of ‘transparency’. Instead, we argue for an attention to moments of what we call ‘opaque reciprocity’: of (1) non-dyadic, non-developmentalist, more-than-human exchange, within which (2) authorship becomes distributed inter-subjectively, thereby (3) de-emphasising efficient, clear, and rational notions of meaning-making.

La dialectique du rationnel et de l’effectif: une ontologie hégélienne pour changer le monde

The different interpretations of Hegel's controversial formula of the Preface of the Principles of the Philosophy of Right, declaring that “Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig”, correspond to the different readings of the overall orientation of the Hegelian notion of objective spirit in general and his political philosophy in particular. This could be illustrated by several examples such as the case of Rudolf Haym (1857) who famously considered the formula as the very expression of Hegel's political conservatism, and the recently published interpretation by J.-F. Kervégan (2021), according to which we should read Hegel's formula as an epistemological judgment and his entire political philosophy as epistemology. After a critical discussion of these two examples, I propose to distinguish between a formal and a speculative paradigm of interpretations, and I present, within the latter, an analysis of the dialectical relations between Hegel's notions of effectiveness (Wirklichkeit) and rationality (Vernüftigkeit), so that the formula of the Preface would not only maintain the role of philosophy in changing the world, but also indicate new potentialities regarding the realization (Verwirklichung) of revolutionary political thought.

Are Humans the Only Rational Animals?

Abstract While growing empirical evidence suggests a continuity between human and non-human psychology, many philosophers still think that only humans can act and form beliefs rationally. In this paper, we challenge this claim. We first clarify the notion of rationality. We then focus on the rationality of beliefs and argue that, in the relevant sense, humans are not the only rational animals. We do so by first distinguishing between unreflective and reflective responsiveness to epistemic reasons in belief formation and revision. We argue that unreflective responsiveness is clearly within the reach of many animals. We then defend that a key demonstration of reflective responsiveness would be the ability to respond to undermining defeaters. We end by presenting some empirical evidence that suggests that some animal species are capable of processing these defeaters, which would entail that even by the strictest standards, humans are not the only rational animals.

A Model to Support Collective Reasoning: Formalization, Analysis and Computational Assessment

In this paper we propose a new model to represent human debates and methods to obtain collective conclusions from them. This model overcomes two drawbacks of existing approaches. First, our model does not assume that participants agree on the structure of the debate. It does this by allowing participants to express their opinion about all aspects of the debate. Second, our model does not assume that participants’ opinions are rational, an assumption that significantly limits current approaches. Instead, we define a weaker notion of rationality that characterises coherent opinions, and we consider different scenarios based on the coherence of individual opinions and the level of consensus. We provide a formal analysis of different opinion aggregation functions that compute a collective decision based on the individual opinions and the debate structure. In particular, we demonstrate that aggregated opinions can be coherent even if there is a lack of consensus and individual opinions are not coherent. We conclude with an empirical evaluation demonstrating that collective opinions can be computed efficiently for real-sized debates.

Critique of Modernity: A World Driven by Commodity

This paper argues for Lukacs’ lasting significance in the modern world, for his critique of modernity that reveals the irrationality behind the rational notion of progress, specifically, through how human subjectivity is sacrificed in a society dominated by reason.

White Settler-colonialism and Epistemic Violence in “Post-apartheid South Africa”: An Azanian Philosophical Analysis

This article is a critical attempt to problematise the notions of European Modernity and Rationality. It is fundamentally an Afrikan philosophical critique of epistemic violence that comes with European Modernity and Rationality. It argues that European Modernity triumphed in “South Africa” following unjust conquest of the Indigenous people since 1652, which was characterised by loss of sovereignty and epistemicide. This resulted in the violent imposition of the law and jurisprudence of White settlers, which are antithetical to Afrikan law and jurisprudence. This epistemicidal nature of White settler colonialism manifests itself through the legal technicalisation of issues of historical injustice.

Panentheism, History and the Problem of Evil

Abstract In this paper I consider the thought of two Jewish existentialists from the first half of the 20th century, showing how their critique of pantheistic and panentheistic thinking grounded novel ideas about politics, history and human thought. In place of a concept of history directed towards a teleological redemption of suffering in the future, Lev Shestov (1866–1938) and Benjamin Fondane (1898–1944) abandoned notions of philosophical rationality in order to avow a ‘reversal’ of history according to which historical suffering could be expiated through the unforeseeable powers of the divine. From here, I look at the work of a contemporaneous philosopher – Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) – for the way in which his own conception of history as ‘rescuing’ the past provides an alternative panentheism, one according to which political responsibility derives from a need to redeem God whose existence has been exiled throughout the mundane world.

Rationally irresolvable disagreement

The discussion about deep disagreement has gained significant momentum in the last several years. This discussion often relies on the intuition that deep disagreement is, in some sense, rationally irresolvable. In this paper, I will provide a theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Such a theory is interesting in its own right, since it conflicts with the view that rational attitudes and procedures are paradigmatic tools for resolving disagreement. Moreover, I will suggest replacing discussions about deep disagreement with an analysis of rationally irresolvable disagreement, since this notion can be more clearly defined than deep disagreement and captures the basic intuitions underlying deep disagreement. I will first motivate this project by critically assessing the current debate about deep disagreement. I then detail the notions of rationality and resolvable disagreement which are crucial for a suitable theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement before sketching various instances of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Finally, I argue for replacing theories of deep disagreement with theories of rationally irresolvable disagreement, an approach that has significant advantages over existing theories of deep disagreement which focus on hinge propositions or fundamental epistemic principles.

Rational stability of choice functions

AbstractTwo independent approaches have been used to analyze choices. A prominent notion is rationalizability: individuals choose maximizing binary relations. An alternative is to analyze choices in terms of standards of behavior with the notion of von Neumann–Morgenstern (vNM)‐stability. We introduce a new concept (stability) that in turn extends the notion of stability and rationality. Our main result establishes that every rationalizable choice function is stable and every vNM‐stable choice has an stable selection. An appealing property of stability is that well‐known solution concepts (top cycle, uncovered set, …) are stable, while they are neither rationalizable nor vNM‐stable.