Because it is appealing -- both in the sense that it allows us to make appeals, and also in the sense that it is aesthetically satisfying.

It's pragmatic. It would be, at best, very difficult to effectively communicate, build trust, and prioritize or achieve personal goals if not. I don't see how you could function as an irrational human

One having a reason for doing something doesn't necessarily make the something being done rational.

Do we have reasons to satisfy requirements of rationality? In other words, is rationality normative, i.e. to do with reasons? — mrnormal5150

I don't want to get in an argument about definitions here, but I like to make a distinction between "rational" and "reasonable." Yes, I know, they are used as synonyms and I'm not trying to rewrite the dictionaries. I've referring to two modes of argument:

What I call rationality - following a formal process with well defined rules to establish facts, investigate ideas, and establish truth.

What I call reasonableness - I look at reason as a more open process. It allows a broader discussion among people who have more fundamental disagreements. I'd say the hallmarks are a general set of agreed on rules to guide the presentation of ideas, a desire to understand the other person's point of view, an openness to being convinced, an agreed on method to determine the soundness of an argument, and lots of other huggy, kissy characteristics.

Being rational does not mean an argument cannot also be reasonable.

And then, of course, there's rhetoric - do what you need to do to win the argument. There's a lot of that on the forum.

All appeal to reasons and causes is a form of rationality. Rationality is a measuring (ratio) of ideas against experience, and our pre-reflective understandings of ourselves and nature.

What is considered to be rational at a given time in history is another matter; that is based on what is most generally taken for granted at the time. To think rationally is to be mindful of any tendency towards contradiction, inconsistency and incoherency. It might still be rational to be contradictory inconsistent and incoherent, but only if you are aware of it and you have a very good reason. :wink:

To think rationally is also to be aware of the psychological tendencies most of us have to indulge in confirmation bias, and wishful thinking. The philosopher Bernard Lonergan says that true understanding involves a four-fold process of being attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible. If you wanted to be inattentive, unintelligent, unreasonable and irresponsible you would need a very good reason to justify that. :wink:

On the other hand the living of life does not consist in following some set of rationally derived rules, because rationality may fall into generalization, whereas the living of life is a singular event, which is the undergoing of, and participation in, a unique series of singular events.

How do you fit those ideas in with your position on intuition, and pre-rationality (is that the word you recently used?) Just curious.

The answer appears to be that rationality is justified with intuition; which is faith based and therefore arguably an irrational decision. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I disagree with this. Intuition is not "faith based" unless you mean something different from "intuition" than the dictionary and I do. Definition from the web - "The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning." Most of the decisions we make are not made on the basis of "conscious reasoning." That doesn't mean they aren't made on the basis of experience, understanding, and sound decision making. I think you've got it backwards, rationality is what we use after we've made a decision in order to justify it. That doesn't mean rationality doesn't have a useful role, but it isn't driving the bus.

The last paragraph, which I was adding as you responded, should answer that, I think. :smile:

:up: Sounds a bit existential for you!

I thought I was well-grounded in the groundlessness of existentiality. Is it back to the drawing board? :yikes:

Nah, stay in the shifting groundless ground. It's the only place to be.

:cool:

The problem is, if you rely on rational reasoning to justify rationality, this is offering a circular argument — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I have been troubled by this for a long time without making any real progress.


1. A while ago someone posted a thread on the difference between benign and vicious circularity. I think the the self-supporting nature of logic, the evident circularity in having to appeal to reason to justify reason, is a benign circularity.

I think the basic syllogism works like this:

1. If logic is justified then predictions it makes must come true
2. Predictions it makes are true
Therefore
3. Logic is justified

The fallacy the argument commits, per logic itself, is that of affirming the consequent.

But there are countless situations where logic's predictions come true. The numbers are significant enough to compensate for the fallacious reasoning (some may disagree).

Yeah this is the interesting bit. Because that is to put trust in the past as though the present has to conform to what has happened previously. And also what do we consider a significant amount exactly? Where is the line between what is significant enough to justify that trust in something compared to when we shouldn’t? This all seems to suggest a faith based response to rationality. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Look at it another way...

May be it isn't circular as it initially appears to be.

Logic demands that we have reasons to support beliefs.

What of our belief in the ability of logic to find truths? Doesn't that need justification?

Yes, it surely does BUT this isn't circular in the manner of a bad argument. Logic isn't saying ''I'm true because I'm true''. That would be a vicious circularity.

Instead logic is saying ''I'm looking in the mirror of my own making and ensuring my own worth.''

Self-reflection is better than self-aggrandizing.

In a way, the ability of logic to find fault with itself is a plus point rather than a damning flaw.

Do we have reasons to satisfy requirements of rationality? In other words, is rationality normative, i.e. to do with reasons? — mrnormal5150

Are you asking for a rational justification for being rational? Isn't that circular?

Would you say that your response here is fundamentally an appeal to the irrational to justify being rational? I don’t mean that in any derogatory way. I like how you put it. But it appears to be that for something to be ‘appealing’,as you put it, is a response to the emotional experience of something feeling appealing. This isn’t something that is itself reasoned. But rather it comes across as intuitive. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I don't think that feelings are irrational, tout court. If your life is in danger it makes sense that you
fear. If your loved one is in the hospital it makes sense that you worry. If you achieve something you care about then it makes sense that you feel accomplished.

So, no, I don't think that this is irrational. It's just consistent -- these are a couple of reasons why we provide reasons. And I'd say that my response describes how rationality works, too. One, it is nice to hear why someone believes as they do -- else I'll just stick to the beliefs I happen to have, since there is no moving from one belief to another by some means which allows different persons to consider them. And two, we move our beliefs because some justification is persuasive -- which itself only makes sense to me in terms of aesthetics.

1. If logic is justified then predictions it makes must come true
2. Predictions it makes are true
Therefore
3. Logic is justified

The fallacy the argument commits, per logic itself, is that of affirming the consequent. — TheMadFool

Are you quite clear what you want to argue here and what you don't?

How would you feel about this same argument with the first premise replaced by its converse? Or replaced by a biconditional? The one would be valid, but maybe not what you want to say. The other only "partially" valid.

I agree that it doesn’t mean they aren’t made on the basis of experience, but that can’t be said for every case of intuitive response. Nor does intuition necessarily imply understanding even if it does in some cases, but rather it’s the feeling of having an understanding rather than knowing one has an understanding. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

This is not my experience. Consciousness does not drive the mind, it follows along with a notebook and writes things down. Most of the work of of thinking takes place in the background and pops up when it's needed. Of course intuition can be wrong, lead to bad decisions, so can rationality. They're really just two sides of the same process. You can't have reason without what we are calling intuition. Feeling that I know and knowing are the same experience.

You still haven’t explained how any of this doesn’t constitute as faith. The definition of faith is: “Complete trust, belief or confidence in someone or something without a proof.” — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Intuition doesn't imply "complete trust or confidence" any more than rational knowledge does. Knowing something is not a matter of being certain, it's a matter of being confident enough in your understanding that you can justify making a particular decision consistent with the possible consequences of your action. That never calls for "complete trust or confidence," primarily because it's impossible to find that.
We do the best we can.

When you act on intuition you are not consciously recalling past experiences; or confirming you actually do understand; or making the effort to make sure there are valid and true premises leading to the conclusion. Intuition is to skip the reasoning, forgoe the premises and act based on a conclusion you trust to be the right conclusion without reference to a proof. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I'm an civil/environmental engineer. I've worked on at least 200 sites where there was contaminated soil, sediment, and groundwater. My job is to figure out how to clean it up. When I get involved in a new site, I almost always can tell you within a couple of hours of reviewing existing information what the best way of dealing with it will be. Often that's based on little site-specific information. Obviously, that's not enough to go on - there is more review, research, and study needed before we can decide to move forward, but 30 years of experience allows me to focus on the important aspects of the problem. Almost none of this thinking is what you would call consciously rational. After spending time with the data, those of us involved in the job will get together talk. That's probably the first time what we are doing is really what I would call rational. We have to put it into words to communicate with others. In a sense, rationality and putting things into words are the same process. None of this has anything to do with faith.

I certainly stand by explanation of intuition as being related to faith based decisions, and don’t think you’ve sufficiently explained why that isn’t the case. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

It isn't the case, at least for me, because I spend a lot of time trying to be aware of my thinking process and, based on that self-awareness, what you describe is not what happens. My view is not an idiosyncratic one, lots of psychologists and philosophers hold similar views.

So you’ve set this up as a disagreement with my claim, but it still appears to agree with what i’ve said so i’m not sure what to make of this comment? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

You say:

The answer appears to be that rationality is justified with intuition; which is faith based and therefore arguably an irrational decision. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I say:

I think you've got it backwards, rationality is what we use after we've made a decision in order to justify it. — T Clark

Did I misunderstand you? When you say "rationality is justified with intuition" to me that means rationality comes first. When I say "rationality is what we use after we've made a decision" I mean that what we are calling intuition comes first.

Are you asking for a rational justification for being rational? Isn't that circular?

No. I'm asking for a reason to be rational. I'm wondering if people think of rationality as normative. It would be circular if one adopted a reason-loaded conception of rationality, which I'm leaving open-ended.

What other definition of rationality is there apart from having reasons?

What other definition of rationality is there apart from having reasons?

One that doesn't have to do with reasons. A rather intuitive one is the view that rationality is a property of persons; it supervenes on the mental. If two individuals in different universes are mentally equivalent, then they both have the same degree of rationality. Under the assumption we can be mistaken about reasons, if I mistakenly think a murderer is in my house, truly genuinely believe it, and I do not wish to die, then it is rational for me to try to escape whether or not I actually have a reason to escape. I can lack a reason to act and be rationally permitted to act. It is also rather natural for us to say that I would be irrational if I did not intend to escape given my beliefs and desires, because rationality, according to this conception, is more a matter of consistency between our beliefs, intended goals, etc., and not actual reasons.

I suppose "having reasons" can have multiple interpretations. In the coherence sense, one is rational if one acts according to reasons that, regardless of their reality, cohere with the rest of a person's beliefs and desires. But they still do have reasons, they still act upon a hypothetical imperative. The goal is set, the rules are placed and the act is set in motion.

Of course this leads to a general issue facing coherentism, that a matrix of beliefs may cohere well but have no basis in reality, i.e. the logic is valid but the premises are false. To ground the normativity of rationality seems to require that the premises be true - otherwise the rationality is arbitrary. The rules are set up, and the agent follows them correctly, but they don't really mean anything. Kant seems to bring this point up when he discusses the rationality of morality, and how it chills us to the bone to see twisted, evil people act with cold "rationality". They have rationality in terms of hypothetical imperatives because they act upon maxims, but in terms of categorical imperatives they have an absence of rationality. Immoral acts are thus always irrational acts.

Nietzsche, I believe, critiques this sort of rationalism; there cannot be any reasons to be moral, since we can always push the question back further. Why should you not lie? Because that is immoral. But why should you be moral? Because that's what morality asks. But why should we follow morality? The meta-normative question exceeds the bounds of morality. Later certain British intuitionists tried to avoid this problem by denying the regress and affirming that there is no meta-normative question, that morality just is binding and to ask "why be moral?" is to ask a malformed question. Anyway I think this may be relevant to the current discussion. If morality is aligned with rationality, so that what is rational is also what is moral, then the question "why be moral" is eclipsed by the question "why be rational?"

The question "why be rational?", though, is a meta-rational question, no? Is it not asking for reasons to be rational?

Having not consciously reasoned is no different than saying that no reasoning has taken place, but to put trust in ones own ability to get to the right conclusions without making the effort to check if it’s actually the case. This trust in oneself without the proof, is what I am constituting as faith and is why intuitions can sometimes be wrong and that trust one puts in oneself can be misplaced. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

However all kinds of antecedent reasonings, one's own as well as the pre-reflectively introjected reasonings of others, go to make up the constitution of the affective self which one may put trust in without further conscious reasoning.

The question "why be rational?", though, is a meta-rational question, no? Is it not asking for reasons to be rational? — darthbarracuda

I think it is just a rational question, perhaps the primary one; but then I don't believe in any kinds of 'meta-questions'. Refusing to be rational obviously cannot be justified on purely rational grounds, but it might be justified, as a temporary disposition and/or within restricted contexts, on emotional, psychological,or even ethical or aesthetical, grounds. I think this is precisely in line with Kant's point about the distinction between pure and practical reason. Such a justification would still be rational, though, only it would not be 'rationality for rationality's sake', so to speak.

In the coherence sense, one is rational if one acts according to reasons that, regardless of their reality, cohere with the rest of a person's beliefs and desires.

I think this is a plausible analogy. There are many senses to the word reason. An exhaustive taxonomic breakdown may be too much to ask for, but I think what you point out is relevant to the question. Sometimes we ask for the reason why someone did something, and all we are looking for is what motivated them. Other times we are looking for a justification. When I think of normative reasons, it's the justificatory role that is primary. So in my example of a person (call him Joe) mistakenly believing a murderer was in his house, one could respond that Joe was responding to "reasons", and what we mean by that is Joe was responding to what Derek Parfit called apparent reasons. Still, this would be an example in which rationality is not tied to actual normative, justifying reasons.

The rules are set up, and the agent follows them correctly, but they don't really mean anything.

This has always bothered me, but I can't quite seem to figure out why I find this so bothersome. Do our intuitions demand rationality to be a thick concept that has a non-arbitrary connection with the world? Because my intuitions about that annoyingly oscillate back and forth. I guess I fear that if we make criteria for rationality external to mental processes then the criteria itself becomes arbitrary. How do we come to know which external criteria actually count as genuine requirements of rationality? To avoid that problem, I adopt a more limiting, less thick, conception of rationality, relegating it to consistency amongst beliefs, conative states, etc.

If morality is aligned with rationality, so that what is rational is also what is moral, then the question "why be moral" is eclipsed by the question "why be rational?"

I think what matters is how exactly morality is lined with rationality. If we think of morality as necessarily reason-generating (if something is morally wrong, then there is a reason not to do it), and if rationality is tracking actual reasons, then it would seem one must be moral to be rational. I personally don't think this is plausible, as it is way too demanding (unless of course we are ok with admitting we are all irrational and rationality is rarely, if ever, achieved). As a result, I reject the tie between rationality and reasons to avoid that issue. But even if true, I don't think this would replace the OP question, as one can still ask for actual reasons to be rational. I also don't think this question can be jettisoned as a failure to grasp the concepts involved.

Consciousness does not drive the mind, it follows along with a notebook and writes things down.

This is going to be a really random question. But are you Andy Clark? lol I think it unlikely as you said you were a civil engineer. But I'm still asking haha.

It depends on one's circumstance. Some creative people function excellently while tending to be largely irrational. Isn't that right MJ and Kanye?

Meanwhile, just one irrational astronaut could easily destroy billions of dollars' worth of equipment, not to mention wasting the passion and stress that large teams of people go into every major space project.

No, oddly enough my first name starts with “t.”

Are you quite clear what you want to argue here and what you don't?

How would you feel about this same argument with the first premise replaced by its converse? Or replaced by a biconditional? The one would be valid, but maybe not what you want to say. The other only "partially" valid. — Srap Tasmaner

Thank you. There are the following possibilities:

J=logic is justified
P=the predictions logic makes come true

1. J -> P
2. P -> J
3. J <-> P which is equivalent to (J -> P) & (P -> J)

2. is unacceptable because P is possible through mere coincidence.

The above objection also makes 3 unacceptable.

So, the only option is 1. J -> P = if logic is justified then the predictions logic makes come true.

Consciousness does not drive the mind, it follows along with a notebook and writes things down. — T Clark

This is a strange conception for me. Do you believe in free will or do you think we’re determined? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

This wasn't directed at me, and I may have it all wrong, but I think this is meant to refer to the nonconscious mind, and how it (very) often makes the decisions. The conscious mind follows on a bit later (perhaps with its notebook, as described :grin: ), and pretends to itself that it is really in control. I don't think it refers to predestination. :chin: