Download or read book Literature and Rationality written by Paisley Livingston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-12-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary study establishes connections between divergent approaches to rationality in philosophy, social science, and literary studies. Livingston provides a broad survey of the basic assumptions and questions associated with concepts of rationality in philosophical accounts of action, in decision theory, and in the theory of rational choice.
Download or read book Rationality written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer
Download or read book Rationality Is The Essence of Literary Theory written by Norm Klassen and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-05-27 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A culturally influential sub-discipline within literary studies, literary theory has developed in parallel form in other arts and social science disciplines, so that one might refer to “cultural theory” or “social theory” as well, or even just to “theory.” It’s as familiar as the word “postmodern” and as tricky as “deconstruction.” What is it about? What is at stake? Theory is about rationality. This book’s title invites two different interpretations of what it might mean to say so. For many, the essence of literary theory is the unmasking and redescription of rationality in other terms. Put ironically, rationality is male; rationality is white; rationality is repression.... The book’s title, however, can also be read in a second way. On this reading, rationality itself is the essence of literary theory and central to literature, art, and society. Certain conceptions of what it entails can be problematic; the critique in the first way of reading the title remains relevant. Yet one can affirm rationality as integral to human flourishing, including the processes of producing, analyzing, and enjoying literature, art, and culture. This book provides readers with a clear overview of theory’s development and the abiding presence of its concern with the status of rationality across its forms.
Download or read book Rationality and Freedom written by Amartya Sen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-30 with total page 756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rationality and freedom are among the most profound and contentious concepts in philosophy and the social sciences. In this, the first of two volumes, Amartya Sen brings clarity and insight to these difficult issues.
Download or read book Rationality and the Literate Mind written by Roy Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book re-examines the old debate about the relationship between rationality and literacy. Does writing "restructure consciousness?" Do preliterate societies have a different "mind-set" from literate societies? Is reason "built in" to the way we think? How is literacy related to numeracy? Is the "logical form" that Western philosophers recognize anything more than an extrapolation from the structure of the written sentence? Is logic, as developed formally in Western education, intrinsically beyond the reach of the preliterate mind? What light, if any, do the findings of contemporary neuroscience throw on such issues? Roy Harris challenges the received mainstream opinion that reason is an intrinsic property of the human mind, and argues that the whole Western conception of rational thought, from Classical Greece down to modern symbolic logic, is a by-product of the way literacy developed in European cultures.
Download or read book Reason and Rationality written by Maria Cristina Amoretti and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reason and rationality represent crucial elements of the self-image of human beings and have unquestionably been among the most debated issues in Western philosophy, dating from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, and to the present day. Many words and thoughts have already been spent trying to define the nature and standards of reason and rationality, what they could or ought to be, and under what conditions something can be said to be rational. This volume focuses instead on the relationships of reason and rationality to some relevant specific topics, i.e., science, knowledge, gender, politics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, language, logic, and metaphysics, trying to uncover and clarify both the connections and differences in their various characterisations and uses.
Download or read book Aspects of Rationality written by Raymond S. Nickerson and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2007-11-19 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be rational to reason well and effectively? How does rationality, broadly conceived, relate to the knowledge one acquires, the beliefs one forms, the explanations one constructs or appropriates, the judgments and decisions one makes, the values one adopts? What is the character of human reasoning and, in particular, does it t
Download or read book The Turkish Novel and the Quest for Rationality written by Ayse Ozge Kocak Hemmat and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-02-04 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Turkish Novel and the Quest for Rationality offers an alternative genealogy of the emergence and development of the Turkish novel by situating the genre in an intellectual framework motivated by conceptions of reason and rationality in the Turkish modernization project.
Download or read book Between Religion and Rationality written by Joseph Frank and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, acclaimed Dostoevsky biographer Joseph Frank explores some of the most important aspects of nineteenth and twentieth century Russian culture, literature, and history. Delving into the distinctions of the Russian novel as well as the conflicts between the religious peasant world and the educated Russian elite, Between Religion and Rationality displays the cogent reflections of one of the most distinguished and versatile critics in the field. Frank's essays provide a discriminating look at four of Dostoevsky's most famous novels, discuss the debate between J. M. Coetzee and Mario Vargas Llosa on the issue of Dostoevsky and evil, and confront Dostoevsky's anti-Semitism. The collection also examines such topics as Orlando Figes's sweeping survey of the history of Russian culture, the life of Pushkin, and Oblomov's influence on Samuel Beckett. Investigating the omnipresent religious theme that runs throughout Russian culture, even in the antireligious Chekhov, Frank argues that no other major European literature was as much preoccupied as the Russian with the tensions between religion and rationality. Between Religion and Rationality highlights this unique quality of Russian literature and culture, offering insights for general readers and experts alike.
Download or read book Rational Meaning written by Laura (Riding) Jackson and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Existing only in manuscript since the 1940s but enjoying an underground reputation among friends and advocates, this primary document by one of the most original and influential of American poets and thinkers is now being published as Rational Meaning, Laura (Riding) Jackson's testament of the necessity of living for truth. Begun as a dictionary and thesaurus in the 1930s, the work developed into a fundamental reevaluation of language itself. Riding, in close collaboration with her husband, continued this monumental project over the succeeding decades, completing it after his death in 1968. At the core of Rational Meaning, which aims to restore the truth of language by arguing that meaning inheres in words, stands the idea that a total renovation of the knowledge of language is needed, not to develop mere verbal sophistication and respectability but fundamentally to reinvigorate the intellectual processes of consciousness. The book reveals the disastrous extent to which language has been "unlearned" and shows how it may be learned again. Rational Meaning will be essential reading, not only for students of literature but for radical-minded linguists and lexicographers unhappy with the orthodoxies current in their disciplines.
Download or read book Evolution and Rationality written by Samir Okasha and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-21 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores from multiple perspectives the subtle and interesting relationship between the theory of rational choice and Darwinian evolution. In rational choice theory, agents are assumed to make choices that maximize their utility; in evolution, natural selection 'chooses' between phenotypes according to the criterion of fitness maximization. So there is a parallel between utility in rational choice theory and fitness in Darwinian theory. This conceptual link between fitness and utility is mirrored by the interesting parallels between formal models of evolution and rational choice. The essays in this volume, by leading philosophers, economists, biologists and psychologists, explore the connection between evolution and rational choice in a number of different contexts, including choice under uncertainty, strategic decision making and pro-social behaviour. They will be of interest to students and researchers in philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, economics and psychology.
Download or read book Rationality written by Jonathan Bennett and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the years since I first read Bennett's brilliant philosophical parable, it has often struck me as incredible that it never became part of the canon of what came to be known . . . as the Language of Thought. Bennett begins, like Mandeville, with honeybees . . . and he takes the reader step by compelling step across the distance that the bees would have to traverse to come abreast of us. The book in my view is a philosophical classic." -- Arthur Danto, Columbia University
Download or read book Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism written by Kei Yoshida and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-08-06 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rationality and Cultural Interpretivism: A Critical Assessment of Failed Solutions critically assesses cultural interpretivism by scrutinizing five different proponents of it and their solutions to the problem of rationality. The book examines the works of Peter Winch, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, and Gananath Obeyesekere and their contributions to the so-called rationality debate in the philosophy of the social sciences. This debate began with Winch’s criticism of Edward Evans-Pritchard and has become one of the central debates in the field since 1960s, continuing as a controversy between Sahlins and Obeyesekere. Kei Yoshida reveals the need for a cogent solution to the problem of rationality. He identifies two main problems with previous theories: first, that they exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social/cultural, and hence they also exaggerate the differences between the natural and the social sciences; and second, that they ignore important social science problems, particularly outcomes from the unintended consequences of human actions. Yoshida urges social scientists not simply to interpret agents’ intentions or symbolic systems, but also to explain the unintended consequences of human actions. Still entangled in positivism, cultural interpretivists claim that the social sciences differ from the natural sciences and thus reject any unity of method. Yoshida argues that we need to overcome the mistaken positivist image of science in order to develop a more fruitful philosophy of the social sciences. The analysis presented in this book will be of value to students and scholars of social epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, and the social sciences themselves, as well as anyone interested in the philosophical problem of rationality and relativism.
Download or read book Rationality in Action written by Paul K. Moser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-10-26 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of previously published pieces that have proven long term importance to theoretical work in rational action.
Download or read book Habermas and Literary Rationality written by David L. Colclasure and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary scholarship has paid little serious attention to Habermas' philosophy, and, on the other hand, the reception of Habermas has given little attention to the role that literary practice can play in a broader theory of communicative action. David Colclasure's argument sets out to demonstrate that a specific, literary form of rationality inheres in literary practice and the public reception of literary works which provides a unique contribution to the political public sphere.
Download or read book The Rationality Project written by Lantz Miller and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rationality written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “In our uncertain age, which can so often feel so dark and disturbing, Steven Pinker has distinguished himself as a voice of positivity.” – New York Times Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates’s "new favorite book of all time”) answers all the questions here Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding--and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational--cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself. We actually think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we’ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book--until now. Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity, and uplifting mythology can add up to crippling irrationality in a society. Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with Pinker’s customary insight and humor, Rationality will enlighten, inspire, and empower.
