The terms “reason” and “rationality” are generally used interchangeably, where the latter is perhaps more technical, or sometimes “reason” is used to describe the human faculty while “rationality” the normative standard to which the faculty aspires. “Reasonable” has acquired a more general usage in social discourse as anyone willing to listen to reason, i.e. anyone whose motives you can figure Continue Reading …
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Luke Muehlhauser on Modern Rationalism (Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot)
I’m generally skeptical when someone proclaims that “rationality” itself should get us to throw out 90%+ of philosophy. So I was a bit puzzled when someone on our Facebook group pointed at some articles by Luke Muehlhauser (specifically “Philosophy: A Diseased Discipline” and “Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant”), host of the excellent Conversations from the Continue Reading …
Be Reasonable, Do It My Way
All reasoning is in service of winning arguments? I knew it all along! It’s hard for me to express any skepticism of the study cited in this New York Times article without going all meta, so I’ll just let the article speak for itself: Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality. Continue Reading …