Talk:Rationality

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Contents 1 Source of ideas 2 announcing policy proposal of general interest 3 post-rational 4 Fix this mistake 5 Article standard 6 Question 7 First sentence a bit incoherent. 8 Proposed Rationality template 9 Bad Analysis

[edit] Source of ideas

I don't know where half of the stuf in this article came from. E.g., this:

In the social sciences, rationality is a complex cluster of traits that, some claim, either apply to human beings, or serve as useful approximations with which to model human behavior. A rational being, in this sense, probably

• has goals and seeks to fulfill them
• is self-interested
• is not significantly constrained/influeby social networks
• is amoral, except to the extend that morals increase "utility"
• choses courses of action based on some kind of optomization procedure (see Rational Choice Theory)

is not risk-averse. acts on the basis of the "expected value"

• deals like an economist with sunk costs.
• is omniscient regarding the future, or at least has a clearly defined and somehow "reasonable" probabilistic model of the future
• is predictible

Who has said this, other than the author of this article? --Larry Sanger

---

I wrote this as filler until I can put something more intelligent. There is significant discussion in Sociology and Economics in which the term "rational" is thrown around without much clarification about what it means. Usually, though, the author has something quite particular in mind, usually one or more of the traits specified in the above points. I think a clarification, perhaps better worded and expanded, would be useful to someone examining discourse in those fields - fields which, of course, come to influence our everyday discourse as well.

Another theme to cover here is the debate between people who think "rationality" is a goodrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr thing to have in social science models (stereotypically Economists) and those who think it is a bad thing (stereotypically Sociologists).

Basically, the above is a synthesis of a few different authors I've read. If it would be better to take this content away until I can clarify exactly who said what, and provide a more in-depth analysis, that would be fine. But please don't delete the whole Rationality page without telling me; I'd like access to the page's "history". -- Ryguasu

---

Okay, in the interest of not seeming a hypocrite when I make similar critiques of others' work, I'm removing the "social science" claims until I can develop them further. If anyone is curious, any work on them will probably take place at User:Ryguasu/Rationality. -- Ryguasu

[edit] announcing policy proposal of general interest

This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal.Slrubenstein | Talk 20:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] post-rational

Does post-rational fit into the various sorts of rational in the article? Coriolise 19:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix this mistake

"In philosophy, which rationality and reason are the key methods by which we obtain knowledge, in opposition to empiricism which states that knowledge is obtained primarily via the senses."

First we need to correct a simple mistake, a "in" as third word is missing.

"In philosophy, in which rationality and reason are the key methods by which we obtain knowledge, in opposition to empiricism which states that knowledge is obtained primarily via the senses."

This sentence is not good, as it gives the reader the impression that there is an opposition between rationality and empiricism. That you can choose between rationality and empiricism.

We need both, of course. Thinking rationally without using our senses to collect information is as useless as collecting information without thinking about the collected data in a rational way. (Roger)

Okay, I fixed it myself. (Roger)

[edit] Article standard

This article is terrible. If you are reading this talk page because you are thinking of using the ideas in the article and want some idea of the standard of those ideas, my advice is find another reference source for now. Anarchia 20:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Do you think rationality could be defined as not only a discrepancy between means and ends, but as a complete absence of the ends, as by a person who is consumed by emotion and thinks of nothing but his current situation, dwelling in blind emotion. AdamBiswanger1 22:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I am assuming that you mean 'irrationality' rather than 'rationality'. The term 'rational' gets used in a variety of ways. 'Irrational' could be used to refer to someone who is dominated by immediate affective states, that is, someone who fails to reflect about his or her situation at all. However, more needs to be said about the person before you call them irrational. First, you need to know why the person is "consumed by emotion and thinks of nothing but his current situation". If the person is currently incapable of doing anything other than living in this way, then calling them 'irrational' seems mistaken. If the person is choosing to live in this way, then he or she might be acting irrationally, but, again, you would still need to know why. Is it, for instance, political or artistic statement (think Diogenes). If the person could conceivably determine he or she has most reason to act in another way, but it is hard to see how he or she could practically come to realise that, then it is appropriate to call the person 'objectively irrational'. (See Niko Kolodny's article in Mind 2005.) If the person could practically come to see that he or she has most reason to act in another way, but is choosing not to, then it is appropriate to call that person 'subjecively irrrational'. On the off chance that your question is due to Hume's argument - this won't work as an argument against Hume. Anarchia 19:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence a bit incoherent.

Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation.

Which word may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation? Rationality or reason? --210.84.46.147 07:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Rationality template

NB this Template is currently only a draft. It should not be called in articles until improved

Part of a series on Rationality

Rationality in different disciplines In economics: Homo economicus, Rational expectations theory In decision theory: Rational choice theory In social dilemmas: Game theory In political science: Public choice theory In psychology: Social exchange theory In biology: optimal foraging theory

Different meanings of rationality Procedural rationality (vs. substantive rationality)

People Herbert Simon John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern Ward Edwards Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

Deviations from rationality Prospect theory Behavioral economics Satisficing Bounded rationality

Related topics Experimental economics This box: view • talk • edit

A couple of us are proposing to do some work to sort out the tangle of articles on various aspects of rationality. A first step is to create a Template to serve as a side-box on all such articles, so the overall structure of thought in the area is clearly before the reader whatever particular aspect is under discussion. However, creating such a template is quite a tall order, since it involves (a) finding all the articles we have got in the area and (b) organising them in a sensible and helpful way, despite the fact that (c) the topic is of interest to people from many different disciplines, and the words are used in somewhat different ways by different kinds of specialists.

The help of all editors of good will is solicited to do this job. Accordingly, I suggest we call the template here on the talk page, rather than on the face of the article, until we have a reasonable first approximation. In the next couple of days I hope to do the job of collecting (most of) the relevant articles, and will set up a first draft of the template using them. I have already discussed this with Anarchia; others interested are invited to add comments here. seglea 16:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I have now done a first draft of a template. NB I have NOT yet gone through looking at what articles should go into it - I am interested for the moment in getting the right headings, in the right order. I am calling it on this Talk page for now - comments (or edits, if you know how to) solicited. seglea 22:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I like the draft template. What about things like reason and reasoning? Do you envisage a place for them in the box, or would that make it too large? I know you aren't that concerned about content at the moment, but I assume that akrasia, or whatever it is called in wikipedia, will go in under deviations from... Anarchia 02:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

H'mm, not sure, maybe that says the categories aren't right yet. Would they be "meanings of rationality" (in which case that title is perhaps not quite right yet)? Or maybe they would be an example of "rationality in philosphy" in the top part of the box? (And what about the "reasonable man" doctrine in law, too, does that belong?) seglea 23:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

How about "sources of rationality" or "criteria for rationality" or "requirements for rationality" (may John Broome forgive me!)? Maybe the "reasonable man" thesis could fit under one of these too? I am a little concerned about the 'people' section, because I am worried that it could get very large. I am not sure whether this is a real concern, however. Anarchia 03:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad Analysis

There are a few problems with this quote: "All that is required for an action to be rational is that if one believes action X (which can be done) implies Y, and that Y is desirable, he or she does X."

(1) I think more is required than acting on beliefs of implication. Suppose I believe that X doesn't imply a desirable Y, it just makes Y highly probable. Can't it still be rational to do X? In fact, other things equal, shouldn't some decision theoretic condition factoring in probability and value be required? As I have understood it, the point of rationality (ration, ratio) was to be able to "weigh" estimated or known quantities, like probabilities and valuations, against each other and to assign preferences accordingly.

(2) Suppose I know that X implies a desirable Y but X* also implies Y and can be done with half the effort or risk. (For example, putting on a sweater at hand instead of getting up and going over to close a stubborn window.) Isn't it irrational to do X? Note that the requirement above would have you do both X and X* as well as any other action that implies Y even if these actions are incompatible. It is strictly an impossible requirement. The requirement above needs qualification to account for competing actions each of which implies Y.

(3) Suppose I know that X implies a desirable Y but also implies Y* which is highly undesirable, more so than Y is desirable. (Maybe closing the window will incite the anger of the heat-exhausted rugby team that's sharing the room.) Again, it's irrational to do X but the requirement would seem to have you do it. Possibly, you mean Y to be the sum of events implied by X but this is not stated. --Jcblackmon (talk) 17:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That should be removed, because it's OR, and because, as you point out, it's false. X may imply Y, and Y may be good, but X may imply Z too, and Z may be bad. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)