The Mystery Of Rationality

Author : Gérald Bronner
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319940287
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Mystery of Rationality written by Gérald Bronner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contributes to the developing dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences. It focuses on a central issue in both fields, i.e. the nature and the limitations of the rationality of beliefs and action. The development of cognitive science is one of the most important and fascinating intellectual advances of recent decades, and social scientists are paying increasing attention to the findings of this new branch of science that forces us to consider many classical issues related to epistemology and philosophy of action in a new light. Analysis of the concept of rationality is a leitmotiv in the history of the social sciences and has involved endless disputes. Since it is difficult to give a precise definition of this concept, and there is a lack of agreement about its meaning, it is possible to say that there is a ‘mystery of rationality’. What is it to be rational? Is rationality merely instrumental or does it also involve the endorsement of values, i.e. the choice of goals? Should we consider rationality to be a normative principle or a descriptive one? Can rationality be only Cartesian or can it also be argumentative? Is rationality a conscious skill or a partly tacit one? This book, which has been written by an outstanding collection of authors, including both philosophers and social scientists, tries to make a useful contribution to the debates on these problems and shed some light on the mystery of rationality. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field.

Author : Markus Knauff
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262045079
Total Pages : 879 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Handbook of Rationality written by Markus Knauff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 879 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers the first integrated overview of the state of the art in the psychology and philosophy of rationality. Written by leading experts from both disciplines, The Handbook of Rationality covers the main normative and descriptive theories of rationality—how people ought to think, how they actually think, and why we often deviate from what we can call rational. It also offers insights from other fields such as artificial intelligence, economics, the social sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. The Handbook proposes a novel classification system for researchers in human rationality, and it creates new connections between rationality research in philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. Following the basic distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, the book first considers the theoretical side, including normative and descriptive theories of logical, probabilistic, causal, and defeasible reasoning. It then turns to the practical side, discussing topics such as decision making, bounded rationality, game theory, deontic and legal reasoning, and the relation between rationality and morality. Finally, it covers topics that arise in both theoretical and practical rationality, including visual and spatial thinking, scientific rationality, how children learn to reason rationally, and the connection between intelligence and rationality.

Author : Adrienne E. Gavin
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0333985133
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Mystery in Children's Literature written by Adrienne E. Gavin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-02-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and horror mysteries. Written by internationally recognised scholars in the field, these thirteen original essays offer challenging and innovative readings of both classic and popular mysteries for children. This volume will be essential and stimulating reading for anyone with an interest in children's literature or in mystery fiction.

Author : Simmons, Geoffrey
Publisher : Harvest House Publishers
ISBN 13 : 0736931279
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Billions of Missing Links written by Simmons, Geoffrey and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Edward Stein
Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 019158472X
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Without Good Reason written by Edward Stein and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1996-01-11 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are humans rational? Various experiments performed over the last several decades have been interpreted as showing that humans are irrational—we make significant and consistent errors in logical reasoning, probabilistic reasoning, similarity judgements, and risk-assessment, to name a few areas. But can these experiments establish human irrationality, or is it a conceptual truth that humans must be rational, as various philosophers have argued? In this book, Edward Stein offers a clear critical account of this debate about rationality in philosophy and cognitive science. He discusses concepts of rationality—the pictures of rationality that the debate centres on—and assesses the empirical evidence used to argue that humans are irrational. He concludes that the question of human rationality must be answered not conceptually but empirically, using the full resources of an advanced cognitive science. Furthermore, he extends this conclusion to argue that empirical considerations are also relevant to the theory of knowledge—in other words, that epistemology should be naturalized.

Author : Steven Pinker
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241380308
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Rationality written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer

Author : Stephen David Ross
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438417985
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Philosophical Mysteries written by Stephen David Ross and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1981-06-30 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is my major thesis. Mystery is inherent in both the nature of things and the nature of rationality. I will sustain this thesis by a review of some of the central issues of philosophy to elucidate their mysterious qualities. More important, however, I will develop in detail an explanation of mystery and trace some of its important ramifications." "I will argue that an ordinal metaphysics, with its associated theory of query, provides an account of mystery that no other theory can provide. "While the theory presented here is a theory of philosophical mystery, it has fundamental implications for all branches of knowledge, including the physical and social sciences. "In short, I speak against a simplistic view of the world and of experience based on a simplistic and narrow conception of understanding and rationality. Mystery calls not for veneration and awe, but for a full and complex activity of mind, broaching all established conditions in its pursuit of answers....Reason is fulfilled as completely in mysteries which persevere throughout our efforts to resolve them as in mysteries which are resolved and dissipated, passing into new questions to which we must find new answers, in an unterminating process of rational interrogation." — From the Preface by Stephen David Ross

Author : Louis K. Dupré
Publisher : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Religious Mystery and Rational Reflection written by Louis K. Dupré and published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should philosophy approach religious experience? Can philosophy do more than describe religious experience without discussing its object? Can religion make genuine truth claims? These are some of the questions raised in these essays.

Author : Ken Wilber
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
ISBN 13 : 0834821796
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Boomeritis written by Ken Wilber and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2003-09-09 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ken Wilber's latest book is a daring departure from his previous writings—a highly original work of fiction that combines brilliant scholarship with tongue-in-cheek storytelling to present the integral approach to human development that he expounded in more conventional terms in his recent A Theory of Everything. The story of a naïve young grad student in computer science and his quest for meaning in a fragmented world provides the setting in which Wilber contrasts the alienated "flatland" of scientific materialism with the integral vision, which embraces body, mind, soul, and spirit in self, culture, and nature. The book especially targets one of the most stubborn obstacles to realizing the integral vision: a disease of egocentrism and narcissism that Wilber calls "boomeritis" because it seems to plague the baby-boomer generation most of all. Through a series of sparkling seminar-lectures skillfully interwoven with the hero's misadventures in the realms of sex, drugs, and popular culture, all of the major tenets of extreme postmodernism are criticized—and exemplified—including the author's having a bad case of boomeritis himself. Parody, intellectual slapstick, and a mind-twisting surprise ending unite to produce a highly entertaining summary of the work of cutting-edge theorists in human development from around the world.

Author : Charles Webel
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134490445
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Politics of Rationality written by Charles Webel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are reason and rationality? How significant are recent postmodernist and neuroscientific challenges to these longheld notions? Should we abandon a belief in reason and an adherence to rationality? Or can reason and rationality be reformulated and reframed? And what does politics have to do with how we think about reason and why we act more or less rationally? The Politics of Rationality differs from other books with "reason" or “rationality” due to its historical, political, depth-psychological, and multidisciplinary approach to understanding reason through history. Charles P. Webel eloquently clarifies the links among ideas, their creators, the relevant mental processes, and the political cultures within which such important concepts as reasons and rationality take hold. He demonstrates how reason and rationality/irrationality have become what they mean for us today and proposes a way to rethink reason and rationality in light of the withering critiques leveled against them. In doing so, he presents a "history of reason and rationality" by examining the intellectual and political contexts of four representative theorists of reason and rationality-- Plato, Machiavelli, Kant, and Weber—and by addressing contemporary challenges posed by postmodernism, depth psychology, and neurophilosophy.