Although enhancing rural human settlements is fundamental to sustainable rural development, inadequate farmers' participation remains a core governance challenge. As digital technology becomes a vital instrument for rural governance, a critical gap remains in systematically understanding its impact on farmers' participation and the mechanisms involved. This study employs the Ordered Probit model, the instrumental variable method, and the mediation effect model to empirically investigate the impact, mechanisms, and heterogeneity of digital technology on farmers' participation in the governance of rural human settlements. The findings are as follows. First, digital technology significantly promotes farmers' participation, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Second, mechanism tests indicate that digital technology primarily operates through increasing farmers' economic cognition and reinforcing social norm constraints. This reveals the dual logic of its mechanism, which integrates both "economic rationality" and "social rationality". Third, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the promoting effect of digital technology is more pronounced among farmers with elderly care responsibilities and in small-scale villages, reflecting the contextual dependence of its empowering effects. Accordingly, this study proposes recommendations such as optimizing the functional design of digital platforms and implementing differentiated, targeted digital empowerment strategies.

This paper seeks to identify what constitutes social irrationality within the Habermasian framework. The discussion is structured in two parts: first, I delineate the definitions of rationality and irrationality in Habermas's work. I argue that while social rationality and irrationality are most prominent within the intersubjective world and the sphere of communicative rationality, they are also identifiable within the domains of epistemic and teleological rationality. Second, I examine the extent to which Habermas’s concept of rationality offers answers to practical issues arising from social irrationality.

Previous research has extensively explored the motivations for pursuing a PhD, aiming to answer the question of “why pursue a doctorate.” However, it has largely overlooked the group that ultimately abandons this pursuit. This paper takes rational choice theory as the analytical framework, and through in-depth interviews with 25 humanities and social sciences academic master’s students, it explores the dynamic process and the complex factors behind the changes in the choice of, with the aim of answering the question of “Why do master’s students who initially have the willingness to pursue a doctoral degree ultimately give up?.” The study reveals that their decision-making process undergoes three distinct stages. That is, the stage of motivation formation based on social rationality, the stage of resource allocation based on conditional integration, and the stage of decision-making and trade-off based on survival rationality and economic rationality. This dynamic process and its decision-making mechanism are deeply influenced by individuals’ social class, supporting the effectively maintained inequality theory. The conclusions offer important implications for refining graduate education policies and understanding the relationship between doctoral degree attainment and family background.

This study examined whether and how tourism-related livelihood strategies impact rural households’ livelihood sustainability in a common prosperity perspective, especially for low-income households. Both empirical model and in-depth interviews were involved. The empirical analysis results show that two types of tourism-related livelihood strategies, i.e., tourism-led and semi-tourism strategies significantly improve the sustainability of households’ livelihood. Furthermore, tourism-led households are predominantly driven by economic rationality, obtaining high income from tourism to enhance livelihood; while semi-tourism households are predominantly driven by social rationality, taking tourism as one of options to broaden livelihood pathways to stabilize livelihood. For low-income households, the impact of semi-tourism livelihood strategy is more significant for livelihood sustainability than tourism-led strategy, either by quantitative or qualitative analysis. Besides, targeted policy assistance related to tourism exert a significantly positive impact on this group. The findings enrich the theoretical significance of the SLF framework and provide practical evidence for paying attention to low-income households in tourism development of rural China.

ABSTRACT The paper aims to illuminate the overlooked parallels between Amartya Sen’s capability approach and Kant’s pragmatic anthropology with the model of social rationality at its core. These parallels have been largely neglected due to Sen’s emphasis on Kant’s moral philosophy and deontic principles, at the expense of his views of social interaction, human imperfection, and conflicts. Sen’s arguments regarding the connection between freedom, social development and rationality resonate with Kant’s core anthropological arguments on freedom as a basic principle of developing social agency, although Sen misinterprets Kant’s perspective on human interests. His pragmatic conception of “imperfect” justice in politics is not merely an adaptation of Rawls’ theory; it is also rooted in a longer tradition that traces back to Kant’s reflections on the flawed character of human society and the necessity of communicative rationality. Consequently, Kant’s anthropology proves crucial in addressing a major issue of Sen’s approach – the problem of selecting adequate capabilities. Kant’s balanced view of individual and collective interests, particularly his anthropologically applied concepts of prudence, public use of reason, and unsocial sociability, enable us to employ his anthropological model of social rationality in explaining Sen’s understanding of how we choose our capabilities.

The phenomenon of cultism toward religious figures continues to persist despite the entrance of society into an era of cultural modernism, which is characterized by rationality and scientific advancement. This article aims to analyze the factors that trigger the emergence of cultism toward religious leaders through a sociological approach and to explain its influence on modern social life. The method used is a literature review of various scholarly sources, including academic journals and research articles relevant to the theme of cultism in society. The study's findings indicate that cultism arises as a response to socio-economic instability experienced by communities, where the presence of charismatic figures is seen as a beacon of hope for prosperity and liberation from hardship. Society tends to seek authoritative figures who offer certainty in social life. Additionally, the influence of media, feudalistic social structures, and power relations between religious figures and their followers further reinforce this phenomenon. Cultural modernism and the shift toward more moderate religious values do not automatically eliminate cult practices; rather, they transform them into more symbolic and concealed forms. This study recommends the importance of critical religious literacy and the strengthening of social rationality to prevent distortions in the relationship between religious leaders and society.

Abstract. The issue of ethical aspects of civil society has gained considerable attention in academic circles over the past two decades. A lot of studies on this topic have been created by philosophers, sociologists, and experts in the field of political and legal thought. However, despite the considerable scientific achievements, theoretical debates on the definition and theoretical foundations of the concept of civil society continue, as reflections on this topic remain extremely controversial. The article emphasizes that against the background of significant contradictions between postmaterial and material values, European countries have been increasingly aware of the importance of mental and intellectual activity for the social structure of a person and ensuring a decent standard of living. The idea of creating a rational secular civil society, or social rationality, which involves organizing social life in accordance with the requirements of reason, is once again becoming relevant at a new level. One of the main achievements of twentieth-century philosophy was the recognition that rationality is the basis for activity in general, as well as for civic engagement in particular. The analysis of the literature shows that the study of civil society is methodologically linked to the development of political rationality in Western societies. The aspects of the formation of the power of reason in the European social context are considered in detail.

The extent to which fishery ecological protection policy objectives are aligned with fishermen’s preferences is central to their participation in environmental protection behavior and can enhance their utility. In this study, survey data are analyzed from 352 fishing households in Weihai City, China, using the choice experiment method and a random parameter logit model to examine the differences in the fishermen’s target preferences for fishery ecological protection measures and their behavior in terms of participation in environmental protection. The results indicate that incorporating fishery ecological policy objectives into conservation programs significantly increases the fishermen’s enthusiasm for environmental protection and their willingness to participate, reflecting their ecological and social rationality. In addition, the environmental protection behavior of fishermen is influenced by their ecological awareness of fisheries, risk perception, willingness to pay, per capita annual income, employment status, number of laborers, fishery technology training, participation in cooperatives, and education level, in addition to other important factors, including the economic conditions and social background. Therefore, designing fishery ecological protection plans that incorporate various policy objectives from which fishermen can choose provides effective decision support and practical pathways for fishery ecological protection and sustainable development. The effective alignment of policies with fishermen’s preferences can thereby enhance their participation in environmental protection.

The intersubjective approach to the study of the cultural meanings formation and movement allows moving away from the classical subject-object dichotomy in communication. The result of the use of intersubjective mechanisms is a change in rationality from individual to social one, which allows us to move away from focusing on linguistic means of achieving mutual understanding, traditionally for the postmodern paradigm questioning the formal side of any communicative system and concentrating on its semantic component. At the same time, cultural conditioning of the intersubjective rationality significantly limits the apparent freedom and chaos of the meanings movement, rooting it in similar metatextual positions of a cultural group ensuring the similarity of interpretations. Thus, the operation of intersubjective meanings turns into a probabilistic process based on interpretative inaccuracies and their correction because of communicative feedback, allowing the formation of distributed meaning by consensus. Communicative rationality differs from instrumental, normative and social rationality by its ability to penetrate all three levels of culture – objective, subjective and intersubjective. Communicative action is based on the coordination of actions by participants in the information exchange based on agreed interpretation of the situation. The existence and functioning of such coordination necessitates a philosophical analysis of its foundations, which is the purpose of the article.

This paper attempts to reconcile the claims that the mind is both flat (Chater, 2018) and highly rational (Oaksford & Chater, 2020). According to the flat mind hypothesis, the mind is a mass of inconsistent and contradictory fragments of experience. However, standard accounts of rationality from formal epistemology argue that to be rational, our beliefs must be consistent, and we must believe all the logical consequences of our beliefs. A social account of rationality is developed based on Brandom's (1994) logical expressivism, in which respecting the norms of logic and probability theory is still central but where these standards apply to our public commitments in social dialogical contexts rather than to our individual belief systems (Skovgaard-Olsen, 2017). According to this account, even if someone's individual beliefs are inconsistent, they cannot be condemned as irrational if they acknowledge the inconsistency and seek to resolve it. It is shown how this approach interacts with people's fragmented and shallow world knowledge, and its social distribution yields some counterintuitive consequences, such as it sometimes being rational individually not seeking to resolve contradictions. Other consequences of this social expressivist approach are considered, including for dual process theories of reasoning, our view of beliefs, the status of logic, and Fodor's (1983) view of central systems. It is concluded that people can have flat minds and yet be highly rational.

ABSTRACT: In this article, I make the case that the reception of Foucault’s politicpal thought by different authors linked to the Frankfurt School tradition (J. Habermas, N. Fraser, A. Honneth, A. Allen and M. Saar) allows us to discern a series of transformations within the tradition itself. In general terms, it is argued that the fundamental change concerns the gradual abandonment of the problem of social rationalization in favor of a perspective focused on the question of processes of subjectivation, a change that calls into question the very meaning of the tradition.

To describe how patients choose between primary care institutions (PCIs) and non-PCIs using rational choice theory from the perspective of survival rationality, economic rationality, and social rationality. Multi-stage stratified sampling and convenience sampling were applied to select 1723 patients to conduct the questionnaire survey. Chi-square test and binary logistic regression were performed to analyze the factors associated with patients' choice of PCIs. In total 55.83% of 1723 patients would attend a PCIs for healthcare. The results of the univariate analysis revealed that patients who are female (58.46%, P = .015), suffering from chronic diseases (56.26%, P = .047), inpatients (67.58%, P < .001), Beijing (59.62%, P = .002), partial understanding of the family doctor contracting system (62.30%, P < .001), and not understanding of the medical alliance policy (58.04%, P = .031) had significantly higher probability of choosing PCIs. Logistic regression analysis showed that females were more unwilling to attend PCIs (odds ratio (OR) = 0.822, 95%CI: 0.676-0.999). Following survival rationality, patients without chronic diseases were more likely to attend PCIs (OR = 1.834, 95%CI: 1.029-3.268), and inpatients were more unlikely to attend PCIs (OR = 0.581, 95%CI: 0.437-0.774). From an economic rationality perspective, patients from the Fujian province were more likely to attend PCIs (OR = 1.424, 95%CI: 1.081-1.876). From a social rationality perspective, patients who partial understanding of the family doctor contracting system were more unlikely to attend PCIs (OR = 0.701, 95%CI: 0.551-0.892), and patients who partial and complete understanding of the medical alliance policy were more likely to attend PCIs (OR = 1.340, 95%CI: 1.064-1.687; OR = 1.485, 95%CI: 1.086-2.030). Survival, economic, and social rationality are involved in patients' choice to attend PCIs. Compared to survival rationality and social rationality, economic rationality showed a lower association with patients' choice to attend PCIs. Medical institutions are recommended to adopt a "patient health-centered" approach when providing medical services and further optimize the family doctor contracting system and construction of medical alliances.

Object: The goal of the work is to develop components of demoeconomics based on the value of demoethics that contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals, which stipulates their consideration in the context of the influence of demographic processes and the transition to “net zero”. Methods: A systematic approach was applied, aimed at a theoretical analysis of the development of the concept of demoeconomy components based on demoethical values and consideration of their impact on demographic processes and the transition to “net zero”. Theoretical analysis of the literature made it possible to identify promising directions for the components of demoeconomics. Findings: Based on the value of demoethics, components of the concept of demoeconomics were developed in the context of social cohesion (SC), social responsibility (SR), social justice (SJ), social rationality (SR), social security (SS), which contribute to the achievement of a sustainable transition of a “net zero” and stabilization of demographic processes, increasing the quality of life of the population. Conclusions: The proposed method, together with the demo-economic components of social cohesion (balance), responsibility (SR), justice (SJ), rationality (SR), security (SS), will allow the formation of a strong and competitive civil society. It is also a tool for resolving contradictions during the transition to sustainable development and ensuring the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Object: The goal of the work is to develop components of demoeconomics based on the value of demoethics that contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals, which stipulates their consideration in the context of the influence of demographic processes and the transition to “net zero”. Methods: A systematic approach was applied, aimed at a theoretical analysis of the development of the concept of demoeconomy components based on demoethical values and consideration of their impact on demographic processes and the transition to “net zero”. Theoretical analysis of the literature made it possible to identify promising directions for the components of demoeconomics. Findings: Based on the value of demoethics, components of the concept of demoeconomics were developed in the context of social cohesion (SC), social responsibility (SR), social justice (SJ), social rationality (SR), social security (SS), which contribute to the achievement of a sustainable transition of a “net zero” and stabilization of demographic processes, increasing the quality of life of the population. Conclusions: The proposed method, together with the demo-economic components of social cohesion (balance), responsibility (SR), justice (SJ), rationality (SR), security (SS), will allow the formation of a strong and competitive civil society. It is also a tool for resolving contradictions during the transition to sustainable development and ensuring the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Connectome-based prediction of decreased trust propensity in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

This essay attempts to demonstrate controversies concerning positivism in the discipline of economics and reasons that have yet kept it alive. It suggests strategy that can simultaneously reduce the mechanical methodological aspect and increase the predictive power of positivist approaches. The paper employs a critical theoretical approach, wherein the inadequacy of positivism is discussed with relations to economic theories. The findings suggest that the nature of social science itself does not let any methodology hold its ground firmly. The combined application of “common rationality” and “social rationality” can simultaneously reduce the mechanical methodological aspect and increase the predictive power of positivist approaches. Drawing on the criticisms leveled upon positive economics, a novel model is envisioned for more reliable economic theory-making, which involves the fusion of “common rationality” and “social rationality”. Keywords: John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, positivism, methodology, common rationality, social rationality

The article explores the close interaction between political scientific discourse and society, which lies in the direct determination of political discourse and the subject field of political science by the demands of the social system.As a result, the boundaries of political discourse are delineated by the boundaries of societal problems and phenomena actualized by society on one hand, and by the dominant type of social rationality on the other.Consequently, the limitation of political discourse within the boundaries of social rationality is traced.It is specified that this process involves a clear subordination and mutual determination of scientific discourse and the social system, characterized by the necessary conformity of political science research to societal norms, axiological, and ethical ideals of society.The article considers the key role of society in shaping the scientific discourse of political science.The interdependence between the political situation in the social system and progressive or regressive processes in political discourse is traced.The article represents the main approaches to understanding the principle of social rationality in the general scientific discourse.The relationship between social rationality, social acceptability, historical situation, and historical context within the framework of general scientific methodology is examined.The key aspects of the operation of this principle within the social and exact sciences are demonstrated.The fundamental role of social rationality for the functioning of social sciences is substantiated.It is proven that the influence of social acceptability not only affects the scientific discourse of social sciences but also exact sciences, considering the decrease in the strength of this factor's influence on the latter.Characteristics and projections are made on the political discourse.

[What the sociologic of an industrial community can tell us about the active society] In his essay, Jon Sunnerfjell explores the dynamics of the so-called active society, characterized by the withdrawal of the welfare state and the displacement of structural conflicts from the state to the local level, based on a larger ethnographic study of an industrial municipality’s action programme for the unemployed. The article highlights the contradiction between the market logic that impregnates the active society’s policy orientation and which expresses itself in a strong mobility imperative and in normative ideals of employability and entrepreneurship, and a type of social rationality that is understood in the essay in terms of the sociologic of the industrial spirit of community. The latter illustrates a type of subjectivity that was formed in traditional industrial communities, and which, by valuing loyalty, community and manual labour, stands in stark contrast to the active society’s imperatives of self-realization in an increasingly abstract labour market. Publication history: Published original. (Published 20 June 2024) Citation: Sunnerfjell, Jon (2024) “Vad en bruksortskommuns sociologik kan säga oss om det aktiva samhället”, in Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys , issue 17, pp. 41–57. https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.17.2

This paper deals with Amy Allen’s critique of Habermas's theory of modernity, democracy, and cosmopolitanism. I will focus on her arguments that touch on the role of rationality. Allen's critique of Habermas will be presented, especially where she argues that focusing on rationality is ethnocentric and promotes the political exclusion of subaltern groups. The extent to which Allen's critiques affect the emancipatory potential of Habermasian theory will next be assessed. It is finally argued that Allen's position leads to a denial of the distinction between social rationality and irrationality as legitimate criteria. The consequences of such a position for the political sphere will then be analyzed.

This paper argues that Kant’s philosophy entails a normative concept of social rationality distinct from other normative concepts such as moral and juridical rationality. I also argue that the normative demands of social rationality are embodied in the regulative idea of enlightenment which implies a profound intersubjective and moral character that unfolds in multiple layers and perspectives.