Citizendia
Your Ad Here

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. Reason involves the ability to think understand and draw Conclusions in an Abstract way as in Human thinking Webster's Dictionary is the name given to a common type of English language dictionary in the United States. Thought and thinking are mental forms and Processes respectively ("thought" is both This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). A syllogism, or logical appeal, (συλλογισμός &mdash "conclusion" "inference" (usually the categorical syllogism) is a kind of The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.


A logical argument is often described as "rational" if it is logically valid. In Logic, an argument is a Set of one or more Declarative sentences (or "propositions") known as the Premises along The term validity (also called logical truth, analytic truth, or necessary truth) as it occurs in Logic refers generally to a property of However, rationality is a much broader term than logic, as it includes "uncertain but sensible" arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like, whereas logic deals principally with provable facts and demonstrably valid relations between them. For example, ad hominem arguments are logically unsound, but in many cases they may be rational. An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem ( Latin: "argument to the man" "argument against the man" A simple philosophical definition of rationality refers to one's use of a "practical syllogism". For example,

I am cold
I don't want to be cold
If I close the window I will not be cold. . .
Therefore, I will close the window

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. The action would likewise be avoided were Y undesirable. Such arguments are logically valid but not necessarily logically sound. The term validity (also called logical truth, analytic truth, or necessary truth) as it occurs in Logic refers generally to a property of In Mathematical logic, a Logical system has the soundness property If and only if its Inference rules prove only formulas that are For example, the premise "If I close the window I will not be cold. . . " may in fact be incorrect. As making formally sound argument is generally considered difficult, the "soundness" or "strength" of such premises will often rest on induction, statistics, and simplified heuristical models. Solipsism ( Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of Reasoning in which the premises of an argument are believed Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. heuristic (hyu̇-ˈris-tik is a method to help solve a problem commonly an informal method


In philosophy, rationality and reason are the key methods used to analyse the data gathered through systematically gathered observations. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language In economics, sociology, and political science, a decision or situation is often called rational if it is in some sense optimal, and individuals or organizations are often called rational if they tend to act somehow optimally in pursuit of their goals. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Political science is a branch of Social sciences that deals with the theory and practice of Politics and the description and analysis of Political systems An organization (or organisation &mdash see spelling differences) is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals which controls its own performance and Thus one speaks, for example, of a rational allocation of resources, or of a rational corporate strategy. In this concept of "rationality", the individual's goals or motives are taken for granted and not made subject to criticism, ethical or otherwise. Thus rationality simply refers to the success of goal attainment, whatever those goals may be. Sometimes, in this context, rationality is equated with behavior that is self-interested to the point of being selfish. Sometimes rationality implies having complete knowledge about all the details of a given situation.

Debates arise in these three fields about whether or not people or organizations are "really" rational, as well as whether it make sense to model them as such in formal models. Some have argued that a kind of bounded rationality makes more sense for such models. Some models of Human behavior in the Social sciences assume that Humans can be reasonably approximated or described as " rational " entities (see Others think that any kind of rationality along the lines of rational choice theory is a useless concept for understanding human behavior; the term homo economicus (economic man: the imaginary logically consistent but amoral being assumed in economic models) was coined largely in honor of this view. Homo economicus, or Economic man, is the concept in some Economic theories of man (that is a Human) as a rational, perfectly informed and

Rationality is a central principle in artificial intelligence, where a rational agent is specifically defined as an agent which always chooses the action which maximises its expected performance, given all of the knowledge it currently possesses.

Contents

Quality of Rationality

It is believed by most philosophers (A. C Grayling) and experts, that a good rationale must be independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts. Any process of evaluation or analysis, that may be called rational, is expected to be highly objective, logical and "mechanical". If these minimum requirements are not satisfied i. e. if a person has been, even slightly, influenced by personal emotions, feelings, instincts or culturally specific, moral codes and norms, then the analysis may be termed irrational.

However, it is difficult for most common people to satisfy these requirement, as it requires a great degree of intrapersonal intelligence to maintain high standards of immunity from emotions and a detailed understanding of procedure of reasoning. Moreover, a number of issues may be analysed by people who have a very culturally specific understanding of ethics, which may further make it likely for their opinions to be irrational.

Theories of rationality

The German sociologist Max Weber proposed an interpretation of social action that distinguished between four different types of rationality. Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (maks 'veːbɐ (21 April 1864 &ndash 14 June 1920 was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered The first, which he called Zweckrational or purposive/instrumental rationality, is related to the expectations about the behavior of other human beings or objects in the environment. These expectations serve as means for a particular actor to attain ends, ends which Weber noted were "rationally pursued and calculated. " The second type, Weber called Wertrational or value/belief-oriented. Here the action is undertaken for what one might call reasons intrinsic to the actor: some ethical, aesthetic, religious or other motive, independent of whether it will lead to success. The third type was affectual, determined by an actor's specific affect, feeling, or emotion - to which Weber himself said that this was a kind of rationality that was on the borderline of what he considered "meaningfully oriented. " The fourth was traditional, determined by ingrained habituation. Weber emphasized that it was very unusual to find only one of these orientations: combinations were the norm. His usage also makes clear that he considered the first two as more significant than the others, and it is arguable that the third and fourth are subtypes of the first two. These kinds of rationality were ideal types.

The advantage in this interpretation is that it avoids a value-laden assessment, say, that certain kinds of beliefs are irrational. Instead, Weber suggests that a ground or motive can be given – for religious or affect reasons, for example — that may meet the criterion of explanation or justification even if it is not an explanation that fits the Zweckrational orientation of means and ends. The opposite is therefore also true: some means-ends explanations will not satisfy those whose grounds for action are 'Wertrational'.

Based on the premise that 'feelings of worthlessness' are a maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality, Phil Roberts, Jr. has proposed a theory in which the rationality of an end is presumed to correlate with the comprehensiveness of its underlying considerations, and in which no concrete objective is presumed to be rational in any but a relative sense of the term. In addition to its ability to explain what morality is (a shared subconscious theory of rationality), Roberts has also demonstrated how his theory can be employed to address a number of rationality paradoxes, including the paradox of rational irrationality, cognitive versus practical rationality conflict, the "rationality debate" (Cohen vs. Kahneman and Tversky) and the paradox of the Prisoner's Dilemma. [1]

Use of the term rational

In a number of kinds of speech, "rational" may also denote a hodge-podge of generally positive attributes, including:

See also

External links and references

Dictionary

rationality

-noun

  1. The quality or state of being rational; agreement with reason; possession of reason; due exercise of reason; reasonableness.
  2. Objectivity, thoughtfulness.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic