Normal Rationality

Normal Rationality PDF Author: Edna Ullmann-Margalit
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198802439
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Normal Rationality is a selection of the most important work of Edna Ullmann-Margalit, presenting some influential and widely admired essays alongside some that are not well known. She was an unorthodox and deeply original philosopher whose work illuminated the largest mysteries of human life. Much of her writing focuses on two fundamental questions. (1) How do people proceed when they cannot act on the basis of reasons, or project likely consequences? (2) How is social order possible? Ullmann-Margalit's answers, emphasizing what might be called biased rationality, are important not only for philosophy, but also for political science, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, economics (including behavioral economics), law, and even public policy. Ullmann-Margalit demonstrates that people have identifiable strategies for making difficult decisions, whether the question is small (what to buy at a supermarket) or big (whether to transform one's life in some large-scale way). She also shows that social dilemmas are solved by norms; that invisible-hand explanations take two identifiable (and dramatically different) forms; that trust can emerge in seemingly unpromising situations; and that considerateness is the foundation on which our relationships are organized in both the thin context of the public space and the intimate context of the family. One of the distinguishing features of Ullmann-Margalit's work is its close attention to the details of human experience, and its use of those details to offer fresh understandings of social phenomena. Her essays cast new light on a diverse assortment of problems in philosophy, social science, and individual lives.

Normal Rationality

Normal Rationality PDF Author: Edna Ullmann-Margalit
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198802439
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book Here

Book Description
Normal Rationality is a selection of the most important work of Edna Ullmann-Margalit, presenting some influential and widely admired essays alongside some that are not well known. She was an unorthodox and deeply original philosopher whose work illuminated the largest mysteries of human life. Much of her writing focuses on two fundamental questions. (1) How do people proceed when they cannot act on the basis of reasons, or project likely consequences? (2) How is social order possible? Ullmann-Margalit's answers, emphasizing what might be called biased rationality, are important not only for philosophy, but also for political science, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, economics (including behavioral economics), law, and even public policy. Ullmann-Margalit demonstrates that people have identifiable strategies for making difficult decisions, whether the question is small (what to buy at a supermarket) or big (whether to transform one's life in some large-scale way). She also shows that social dilemmas are solved by norms; that invisible-hand explanations take two identifiable (and dramatically different) forms; that trust can emerge in seemingly unpromising situations; and that considerateness is the foundation on which our relationships are organized in both the thin context of the public space and the intimate context of the family. One of the distinguishing features of Ullmann-Margalit's work is its close attention to the details of human experience, and its use of those details to offer fresh understandings of social phenomena. Her essays cast new light on a diverse assortment of problems in philosophy, social science, and individual lives.

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Stefano Gattei
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134182953
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Rectifying misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, Gattei reconstructs the logic of Popper’s development to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.

Teaching for Commitment

Teaching for Commitment PDF Author: Elmer John Thiessen
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773511620
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Elmer Thiessen provides a comprehensive critical survey of the debate concerning indoctrination, especially in the context of confessional religious education. His central aim is to establish that indoctrination as a result of religious instruction is neither inevitable nor as probable as is often assumed by advocates of liberal education. Thiessen recognizes that indoctrination can occur in Christian homes and schools. He believes, however, that before the charge of indoctrination can be correctly evaluated, we need to develop a more coherent concept of the term. He provides a critical examination of the four criteria traditionally associated with indoctrination - content, method, intention, and consequences - and of the institutional context of indoctrination.

Collective Rationality and Collective Reasoning

Collective Rationality and Collective Reasoning PDF Author: Christopher McMahon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521011785
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
"This book examines the issue of rational cooperation, especially cooperation between people with conflicting moral commitments. The first part considers how the two main aspects of cooperation - the choice by a group of a particular cooperative scheme and the decision by each member to contribute to that scheme - can be understood as guided by reason. The second part explores how the activity of reasoning itself can take a cooperative form. The book is distinctive in offering an account of what people can accomplish by reasoning together, of the role of deliberation in democratic decision making, and of the negotiation of the proper use of concepts. Presenting for the first time a detailed analysis of the general problem of cooperation and collective reasoning between people with different moral commitments, this book will be of particular interest to philosophers of the social sciences and to students in political science, sociology and economics." --Cambridge Press.

The Handbook of Rationality

The Handbook of Rationality PDF Author: Markus Knauff
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262045079
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 879

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Book Description
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.

Rationality in Extensive Form Games

Rationality in Extensive Form Games PDF Author: Andrés Perea
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780792375401
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book is concerned with situations in which several persons reach decisions independently and the final consequence depends, potentially, upon each of the decisions taken. Such situations may be described formally by an extensive form game: a mathematical object which specifies the order in which decisions are to be taken, the information available to the decision makers at each point in time, and the consequence that results for each possible combination of decisions. A necessary requirement for rational behavior in such games is that each decision maker should reach a decision that is optimal, given his preferences over his own decisions. This requirement is far from sufficient, however, since every decision maker should in addition base his preferences upon the conjecture that his opponents will act optimally as well. It is this principle that distinguishes noncooperative game theory from one-person decision theory. The main purpose of Rationality in Extensive Form Games is to discuss different formalizations of this principle in extensive form games, such as backward induction, Nash equilibrium, forward induction and rationalizability, under the assumption that the decision makers' preferences are given by subjective expected utility functions. The various formalizations, or rationality criteria, are illustrated by examples, and the relationships among the different criteria are explored.

Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy

Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy PDF Author: Thomas Boylan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134077246
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Following Amartya Sen’s insistence to expand the framework of rational choice theory by taking into account ‘non-utility information,’ economists, political scientists and philosophers have recently concentrated their efforts in analysing the issues related to rights, freedom, diversity intentions and equality. Thomas Boylan and Ruvin Gekker have gathered essays that reflect this trend. The particular themes addressed in this volume include: the measurement of diversity and freedom, formal analysis of individual rights and intentions, judgment aggregation under constraints and strategic manipulation in fuzzy environments. Some papers in the volume also deal with philosophical aspects of normative social choice.

The Rationality Quotient

The Rationality Quotient PDF Author: Keith E. Stanovich
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262034840
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.

Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind

Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind PDF Author: Michel Weber
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438429428
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
Opens a dialogue between process philosophy and contemporary consciousness studies.

The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays

The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays PDF Author: Sydney Shoemaker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521568715
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Sydney Shoemaker is one of the most influential philosophers currently writing on philosophy of mind and metaphysics. The essays in this collection deal with the way in which we know our own minds, and with the nature of those mental states of which we have our most direct conscious awareness. Professor Shoemaker opposes the 'inner sense' conception of introspective self-knowledge. He defends the view that perceptual and sensory states have non-representational features - 'qualia' - that determine what it is like to have them. Amongst the other topics covered are the unity of consciousness, and the idea that the 'first-person perspective' gives a privileged route to philosophical understanding of the nature of mind. This major collection is sure to prove invaluable to all advanced students of the philosophy of mind and cognitive science.