I don't know where half of the stuf in this article came from. E.g., this:
is not risk-averse. acts on the basis of the "expected value"
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
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
{{ Rationality}} 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)
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)
I took the rather draconian measure of removing a lot of unsourced material that struck me as original research. This involved the definition. The article now lacks a clear definition/introduction. Someone might want to get on this. However, I think removing everything is preferable to having what was up there up. Maybe stick a dictionary definition up in the meanwhile? [1]. I am not sure how consistent those definitions are with this page, though. Cazort ( talk) 17:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Surely some of the stuff from lesswrong.com could be useful in this article?
Does post-rational fit into the various sorts of rational in the article? Coriolise 19:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I would be interested in a section, perhaps, on the criticisms of rationality. Endlessmug ( talk) 00:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
which makes very little grammatical sense, is also hardly relevant for the article, but more so a plug for some guys citation... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.68.246.193 ( talk) 00:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
The 28th of september, Jj1236 changed the definition of Rationality. I liked this change, however, I suspected that Jj1236 made it up her/himself, and therefore I asked on Jj1236's talkpage if it came from the referenced source cambridge dictionary. Jj1236 didn't answer me, so now I revert the edit, because it must be covered by the source. Lova Falk talk 09:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
rationality. In its primary sense, rationality is a normative concept that philosophers have gen- erally tried to characterize in such a way that, for any action, belief, or desire, if it is rational we ought to choose it. No such positive characteri- zation has achieved anything close to universal assent because, often, several competing actions, beliefs, or desires count as rational. Equating what is rational with what is rationally required eliminates the category of what is rationally allowed. Irrationality seems to be the more fun- damental normative category; for although there are conflicting substantive accounts of irrational- ity, all agree that to say of an action, belief, or desire that it is irrational is to claim that it should always be avoided.
— The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 2nd edition
The definition currently starts: "Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable." The common use of "reasonable" focuses more on a sense of fairness, rather than an opinion being derived by reason. Accordingly, this definition does not appear to convey the intended concept.
Rwilkin ( talk) 05:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Rationality is a normative concept that refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, or of one's actions with one's reasons for action. This is a poorly worded sentence. I tried to rewrite it clearly but it was reverted. Anyone else care to translate it into something intelligible. Bhny ( talk) 04:07, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Is a mystic irrational and/or insane by definition? Kortoso ( talk) 22:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
The page here cites A.C. Grayling as saying that reason must be entirely separate from emotion. I'd be interested in finding out where he said that, because he says the exact opposite here: http://thesciencenetwork.org/media/videos/296/Transcript.pdf
'There’s a great deal of empirical work in psychology, for example, that tells us that you’re a bad reasoner if your emotions are not engaged' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.19.123.188 ( talk) 10:55, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
I read the first sentence and stop. I know it is wrong. Conflating reason with rationality is just stupid. I don't care what Webster's has to say about it. Webster's has an excuse - it's a dictionary and it's not an encyclopedia. It's an issue of length and immediate need - although I think this is a particularly egregious example of poverty of penetration to the essence of meaning.
And then I look at the source of the opening statement buried in the footnote, and think - this is a really badly written article. Of course, it's a community effort.
If you want to list random sources it should begin with the source and look like a list. If you want to penetrate to the quick of meaning, you need deeper analysis. Since I am going in that direction, I may give this article a lift - but it's not on my immediate agenda. Could come up within 6 months. this is sad
I don't know where half of the stuf in this article came from. E.g., this:
is not risk-averse. acts on the basis of the "expected value"
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
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
{{ Rationality}} 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)
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)
I took the rather draconian measure of removing a lot of unsourced material that struck me as original research. This involved the definition. The article now lacks a clear definition/introduction. Someone might want to get on this. However, I think removing everything is preferable to having what was up there up. Maybe stick a dictionary definition up in the meanwhile? [1]. I am not sure how consistent those definitions are with this page, though. Cazort ( talk) 17:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Surely some of the stuff from lesswrong.com could be useful in this article?
Does post-rational fit into the various sorts of rational in the article? Coriolise 19:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I would be interested in a section, perhaps, on the criticisms of rationality. Endlessmug ( talk) 00:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
which makes very little grammatical sense, is also hardly relevant for the article, but more so a plug for some guys citation... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.68.246.193 ( talk) 00:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
The 28th of september, Jj1236 changed the definition of Rationality. I liked this change, however, I suspected that Jj1236 made it up her/himself, and therefore I asked on Jj1236's talkpage if it came from the referenced source cambridge dictionary. Jj1236 didn't answer me, so now I revert the edit, because it must be covered by the source. Lova Falk talk 09:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
rationality. In its primary sense, rationality is a normative concept that philosophers have gen- erally tried to characterize in such a way that, for any action, belief, or desire, if it is rational we ought to choose it. No such positive characteri- zation has achieved anything close to universal assent because, often, several competing actions, beliefs, or desires count as rational. Equating what is rational with what is rationally required eliminates the category of what is rationally allowed. Irrationality seems to be the more fun- damental normative category; for although there are conflicting substantive accounts of irrational- ity, all agree that to say of an action, belief, or desire that it is irrational is to claim that it should always be avoided.
— The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 2nd edition
The definition currently starts: "Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable." The common use of "reasonable" focuses more on a sense of fairness, rather than an opinion being derived by reason. Accordingly, this definition does not appear to convey the intended concept.
Rwilkin ( talk) 05:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Rationality is a normative concept that refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, or of one's actions with one's reasons for action. This is a poorly worded sentence. I tried to rewrite it clearly but it was reverted. Anyone else care to translate it into something intelligible. Bhny ( talk) 04:07, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Is a mystic irrational and/or insane by definition? Kortoso ( talk) 22:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
The page here cites A.C. Grayling as saying that reason must be entirely separate from emotion. I'd be interested in finding out where he said that, because he says the exact opposite here: http://thesciencenetwork.org/media/videos/296/Transcript.pdf
'There’s a great deal of empirical work in psychology, for example, that tells us that you’re a bad reasoner if your emotions are not engaged' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.19.123.188 ( talk) 10:55, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
I read the first sentence and stop. I know it is wrong. Conflating reason with rationality is just stupid. I don't care what Webster's has to say about it. Webster's has an excuse - it's a dictionary and it's not an encyclopedia. It's an issue of length and immediate need - although I think this is a particularly egregious example of poverty of penetration to the essence of meaning.
And then I look at the source of the opening statement buried in the footnote, and think - this is a really badly written article. Of course, it's a community effort.
If you want to list random sources it should begin with the source and look like a list. If you want to penetrate to the quick of meaning, you need deeper analysis. Since I am going in that direction, I may give this article a lift - but it's not on my immediate agenda. Could come up within 6 months. this is sad