Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Principles of Leibnizian Metaphysics
- 2 Leibniz and “The Liar” Paradox
- 3 Hume and Conceivability
- 4 Hume and Rationality
- 5 The Rationale of Kantian Ethics
- 6 Kant on a Key Difference between Philosophy and Science
- 7 Pragmatic Perspectives
- 8 Wittgenstein’s Logocentrism
- 9 Did Leibniz Anticipate Gödel?
- 10 Quantum Epistemology
- 11 Constituting the Agenda of Philosophy
- 12 Philosophy of Science’s Diminished Generation
- 13 A Fallen Branch from the Tree of Knowledge: The Failure of Futurology
- Name Index
4 - Hume and Rationality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Principles of Leibnizian Metaphysics
- 2 Leibniz and “The Liar” Paradox
- 3 Hume and Conceivability
- 4 Hume and Rationality
- 5 The Rationale of Kantian Ethics
- 6 Kant on a Key Difference between Philosophy and Science
- 7 Pragmatic Perspectives
- 8 Wittgenstein’s Logocentrism
- 9 Did Leibniz Anticipate Gödel?
- 10 Quantum Epistemology
- 11 Constituting the Agenda of Philosophy
- 12 Philosophy of Science’s Diminished Generation
- 13 A Fallen Branch from the Tree of Knowledge: The Failure of Futurology
- Name Index
Summary
What Is It to Be Rational?
Man, it has been said, is the rational animal. Our doings need not be determined by automaticity or instinct, but can result from deliberative thought. Deliberative thought based on beliefs and evaluations regarding ends can be the determining of actions. Accordingly the full exercise of our human rationality calls for trying to do the best we can manage under the circumstances to meet our genuine needs and our appropriate wants—that is, to realize our best interests.
Does Rationality Have Different Forms or Versions?
Rationality has three different modes, cognitive, evaluative, and practical, depending on whether the issue at hand relates to matter of beliefs, evaluation, or action. And accordingly rationality has three departments concerned, respectively, with its cognitive (epistemic), evaluative (normative), and procedural (practical) dimensions. In each case, we look to the best estimate we can make of
the actual truth of belief
the actual worth of things
the actual efficacy of actions
Accordingly, rationality consists on doing the best we can in the circumstances to realize these objectives.
Some theorists distinguish between rationality as it functions in purely inferential proceedings of deriving proper conclusions from given and unevaluated premisses, and a reasonableness for which the acceptability of premisses is a coordinately crucial consideration. Only because he adopts this conception of reason is David Hume able to say that “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
Hume's rationality confines itself to inferential relationships among accepted contentions, wholly putting aside the issues of evaluation and assessment of merit. But clearly this is in the final analysis incoherent, there being no good reason for dismissing substance in the interests of form evaluative reason is no contradiction in terms. Most sensible people, moreover, would likely see the reasonableness of a belief or action as an essential aspect of its rationality.
Consider addressing the following problems:
Question: What sorts of considerations are good reasons for a belief? Answer: Those that provide cogent supportive grounds (that is, good evidence) for its acceptance.
Question: What sorts of considerations provide good reasons for our evaluations?
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- Information
- Ventures in Philosophical History , pp. 35 - 40Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2022