In his pre-critical lectures on rational psychology, Kant employs an argument from the I to the transcendental freedom of the soul. In the (A-edition of the) first Critique, he distances himself from rational psychology, and instead offers four paralogisms of this doctrine, insisting that ‘I think’ no longer licenses any inferences about a soul. Kant also comes alive to the possibility that we could be thinking mechanisms – rational beings, but not agents. These developments rob (...) him of his pre-critical rationalist argument for freedom. In the Groundwork, this is a serious problem; if we are not free, morality will be a phantasm for us. In Groundwork III, Kant attempts to overcome this by offering a new argument for our freedom, involving the standpoint of practical reason. In this paper, I detail these developments and present a practical and phenomenological reading of Kant’s approach in Groundwork III. I also venture a defence of this new argument. (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to (...) do so is to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context.Readership: Scholars and advanced students in history of philosophy, especially those working on Kant. (shrink)

I focus on two main points in Ian Proops’s reading of Kant’s Paralogisms of Pure Reason: the structure of the paralogisms in the A edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, and the changes in Kant’s exposition of the paralogisms from A to B. I agree with Proops that there are defects in the A exposition and that Kant attempted to correct those defects in B. But I argue that Proops fails to give its due to what remains fundamental in (...) both editions: Kant’s criticism of the rational psychologist’s confusion between the subjective (albeit universally subjective) standpoint thinkers have on themselves just in virtue of thinking, and the objective, metaphysical standpoint on a thinking thing. In short, Proops fails to give sufficient attention to Kant’s opening statement in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason: ‘“I think” is the sole text of rational psychology’. (shrink)

In this essay I position Kant's "psychology" portion of the lectures on metaphysics against the backdrop of Kant's work to develop a new lecture course on anthropology during the 1770s. I argue that the development of this course caused significant trouble for Kant in three distinct ways, though in each case the difficulty would turn on Kant's approach to "empirical psychology." The first problem for Kant had to do with refashioning psychology such that empirical psychology could (...) be reassigned to anthropology and rational psychology protected from the spectre of subreption. The second problem, and in many way the larger one for Kant during this time period, followed from Kant's desire to make use of empirical psychology's account of the mental faculties in his own transcendental theory of cognition. This introduced a separate problem for Kant, however, since this was a time during which physiological psychology was on the rise, a psychology that was being promoted by Ernst Platner and his followers, as "anthropology." This left Kant with the unwelcome task of simultaneously distinguishing his own philosophical anthropology from Platner's, and distancing his own transcendental theory of cognition from the likes of Herder and Tetens, given their embrace of the "embodied mind" approach being advanced by the physiological psychologists. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Kant's Target The First and Second Edition Versions of the Paralogisms Logical Subject versus Substantial Subject Logical versus Substantial Simplicity of the Subject Materialism, Spiritualism, Immaterialism Logical versus Substantial Identity of the Subject The Thinking Subject and the Existence of External Objects From Rational Psychology to Empirical Psychology From Logical Subject to Moral Subject Conclusion.

: According to Kant, the arguments of rational psychology are formal fallacies that he calls transcendental paralogisms. It remains heavily debated whether there actually is any formal error in the inferences Kant presents: according to Grier and Allison, they are deductively invalid syllogisms, whereas Bennett, Ameriks, and Van Cleve deny that they are formal fallacies. I advance an interpretation that reconciles these extremes: transcendental paralogisms are sound in general logic but constitute formal fallacies in transcendental logic. By formalising (...) the paralogistic inference, I will pinpoint the error as an illegitimate existential presupposition. Since - unlike transcendental logic - general logic abstracts from all objects, this error can only be detected in transcendental logic. (shrink)

This paper proposes a revision of Girard’s interpretation of Satan, along traditional theological lines. Appreciating the essential correctness of the Girardian characterization of mimēsis, it is an argument, contra Girard, that (1) Satan cannot be reduced to a mimetic process but is a hypostatic spiritual reality and, following from this, that (2) the origins of mimetic rivalry go back before the emergence of humankind and provide a model for human rivalry. Employing concepts drawn from Husserlian phenomenological psychology, Thomist theology, (...) and psychoanalysis, it hypothesizes Satan’s psychological state, prior to his fall, as metastable anxiety and trauma and his state, afterwards, as a narcissistic, malicious, self-induced pathology in order to explain Satan’s impossible rivalry with God, a rivalry that precedes hominization and has always endangered human existence. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Baumgarten’s views on the soul in the context of the Pietist critique of Wolff’s rational psychology. My primary aim is to account for the largely unacknowledged differences between Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s rational psychology, though I also hope to show that, in some cases, the Pietists were rather more perceptive in their reading of Wolff than they are typically given credit for as their criticisms frequently succeed in drawing attention to significant omissions (...) in Wolff’s discussion. (shrink)

Though not the first to use the term "psychology" (psychologia), ' Christian Wolff did give it currency in the mid-eighteenth century. He was the first to mark off the discipline of empirical psychology and to distinguish it from rational, or theoretical, psychology. This distinction and his conception of the two corresponding methods of conducting psychological inquiry, especially his emphasis on the use of introspection, profoundly inffuenced the course of psychological..

One third of the transcendental dialectic in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is devoted to demolishing the pseudo-science of rational psychology. In this part of his work Kant attacks the idea that there is an ultimate subject of experience — the ‘I’ or Self — which can only be investigated and understood intellectually. The belief that such a study is possible is natural to human reason; but it is based on demonstrable error. Kant tries to exorcize our minds (...) from falling prey to this mistake. (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to (...) do so is to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context. (shrink)

In Kant, remarkably, and for the first time perhaps in the history of philosophy, the problem of the Ego receives an ontological signification. The critique of the paralogisms of rational psychology concerns, explicitly, this fundamental problem of the being of the ego. Kant’s examination of this problem constitutes an essential moment of the history of modern philosophy. This examination results finally in the complete failure to determine such a being, a failure that Kant attempts to pass off ultimately (...) as a metaphysical impossibility. This is affirmed constantly through the labyrinthine analysis of the Transcendental Dialectic: what emerges from its difficulties, and obscurities, is that the being of the Ego can be neither determined, nor posited, metaphysically. The conclusion is unquestionably the following: the ego cogito does not contain in itself any sum, at least if, by the latter, one intends, as does rational psychology, the metaphysical and, in some way, absolute being of the ‘I’. (shrink)

The chapter places Kant's discussions of empirical and rational psychology in the context of previous discussions in Germany. It also considers the status of what might be called his "transcendental psychology" as an instance of a special kind of knowledge: transcendental philosophy. It is divided into sections that consider four topics: the refutation of traditional rational psychology in the Paralogisms; the contrast between traditional empirical psychology and the transcendental philosophy of the Deduction; Kant's appeal (...) to an implicit psychology in his taxonomy and theory of cognitive faculties throughout the Critique of Pure Reason; and his new definitions of and support for empirical and rational psychology in the Doctrine of Method. (shrink)

Professor Vendler’s book is a notable recent addition to the Cornell Contemporary Philosophy Series, and it attempts to develop a more adequate, but still distinctly rationalistic, Cartesian perspective on ideas, thought, and speech by using the techniques of generative linguistics and of analytical philosophy. Initially, he elucidates the relationship between speech and thought by demonstrating that the former is an expression of the latter. He then distinguishes between the subjective and objective dimensions of thought by concentrating particularly on the concepts (...) of belief and knowledge. These analyses are followed by an acute inquiry into the learning and understanding of speech by reference to the native and acquired elements of knowledge. His investigations culminate in an explicit rejection of all forms of empiricism and behaviorism in philosophical psychology, most particularly the influential view propounded by Ryle in Concept of Mind. Furthermore, Professor Vendler’s study extends some insights of J. L. Austin, and he finds Wittgenstein’s understanding of language and speech to be incorrect because our knowledge of what a word means is "a function of, and is to be explained in terms of, understanding certain incomplete propositions.". (shrink)

Rational choice theory enjoys unprecedented popularity and influence in the behavioral and social sciences, but it generates intractable problems when applied to socially interactive decisions. In individual decisions, instrumental rationality is defined in terms of expected utility maximization. This becomes problematic in interactive decisions, when individuals have only partial control over the outcomes, because expected utility maximization is undefined in the absence of assumptions about how the other participants will behave. Game theory therefore incorporates not only rationality but also (...) common knowledge assumptions, enabling players to anticipate their co-players' strategies. Under these assumptions, disparate anomalies emerge. Instrumental rationality, conventionally interpreted, fails to explain intuitively obvious features of human interaction, yields predictions starkly at variance with experimental findings, and breaks down completely in certain cases. In particular, focal point selection in pure coordination games is inexplicable, though it is easily achieved in practice; the intuitively compelling payoff-dominance principle lacks rational justification; rationality in social dilemmas is self-defeating; a key solution concept for cooperative coalition games is frequently inapplicable; and rational choice in certain sequential games generates contradictions. In experiments, human players behave more cooperatively and receive higher payoffs than strict rationality would permit. Orthodox conceptions of rationality are evidently internally deficient and inadequate for explaining human interaction. Psychological game theory, based on nonstandard assumptions, is required to solve these problems, and some suggestions along these lines have already been put forward. Key Words: backward induction; Centipede game; common knowledge; cooperation; epistemic reasoning; game theory; payoff dominance; pure coordination game; rational choice theory; social dilemma. (shrink)

Current psychology of human reasoning is divided into several different approaches. For instance, there is a major dispute over the question whether human beings are able to apply norms of the formal models of rationality such as rules of logic, or probability and decision theory, correctly. While researchers following the “heuristics and biases” approach argue that we deviate systematically from these norms, and so are perhaps deeply irrational, defenders of the “bounded rationality” approach think not only that the evidence (...) for this conclusion is problematic but also that we should not, at least not very often, use formal norms in reasoning. I argue that while the evidence for heuristics and biases is indeed questionable, the bounded rationality approach has its limits too. Most especially, we should not infer that formal norms play no role in a comprehensive theory of rationality. Instead, formal and bounded rules of reasoning might even be connected in a more comprehensive theory of rationality. (shrink)

Apresentação de Psicologia Racional e a Ideia Pseudo-racional de Alma, de Michelle Grier.

Samuels and Stich explore the debate over the extent to which ordinary human reasoning and decision making is rational. One prominent cluster of views, often associated with the heuristics and biases tradition in psychology, maintains that human reasoning is, in important respects, normatively problematic or irrational. Samuels and Stich start by sketching some key experimental findings from this tradition and describe a range of pessimistic claims about the rationality of ordinary people that these and related findings are sometimes (...) taken to support. Such pessimistic interpretations of the experimental findings have not gone unchallenged however: Samuels and Stich outline some of the research on reasoning that has been done by evolutionary psychologists and sketch a cluster of more optimistic theses about ordinary reasoning that such psychologists defend. Although Samuels and Stich think that the most dire pronouncements made by writers in the heuristics and biases tradition are unwarranted, they also maintain that the situation is rather more pessimistic than sometimes suggested by evolutionary psychologists. They conclude by defending this “middle way” and sketch a family of “dual processing” theories of reasoning which, they argue, offer some support for the moderate interpretation they advocate. (shrink)

This book brings together in one volume some of the very latest developments in moral psychology that were presented at a major American conference in 2004. Moral psychology is a broad area at the intersection of moral philosophy and philosophy of mind and action. Essays in this collection deal with most of the central issues in moral psychology that are of interest to a large number of philosophers today, including important questions in normative ethical theory, meta-ethics, and (...) applied ethics. (shrink)

This paper explicates an account of argumentative rationality by articulating the common, basic idea of its nature, and then identifying a collection of assumptions inherent in it. Argumentative rationality is then contrasted with dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality prevalent in the psychology of reasoning. It is argued that argumentative rationality properly corresponds only with system-2 reasoning in dual-process theories. This result challenges the prescriptive force of argumentative norms derives if they derive at all from their descriptive accuracy of (...) our cognitive capacities. In response, I propose an activity-based account of reasoning which retains the assumptions of argumentative rationality while recontextualizing the relationship between reasoning as a justificatory activity and the psychological states and processes underlying that activity. (shrink)

Derek Parfit claims that all that rationally matters for a person is psychological connectedness or continuity, even without identity. A psychological replica of a person whose body is destroyed upon the replication rationally should be considered just as valuable as the original person. I argue against this, maintaining that any such copying procedure would be objectionable. First, I argue that a copy of an original person does not preserve identity to the original person. And second, I argue that because a (...) copy does not retain the identity of the orignial, it is not irrational to regard a copy as of less value than the original. (shrink)

British psychologists have been at the forefront of research into human reasoning for 40 years. This article describes some past research milestones within this tradition before outlining the major theoretical positions developed in the UK. Most British reasoning researchers have contributed to one or more of these positions. We identify a common theme that is emerging in all these approaches, that is, the problem of explaining how prior general knowledge affects reasoning. In our concluding comments we outline the challenges for (...) future research posed by this problem. (shrink)

That the rationality of individual people is ‘bounded’ – that is, finite in scope and representational reach, and constrained by the opportunity cost of time – cannot reasonably be controversial as an empirical matter. In this context, the paper addresses the question as to why, if economics is an empirical science, economists introduce bounds on the rationality of agents in their models only grudgingly and partially. The answer defended in the paper is that most economists are interested primarily in markets (...) and only secondarily in the dynamics of individual decisions – specifically, they are interested in these dynamics mainly insofar as they might systematically influence the most useful approaches to modeling interesting markets. In market contexts, bounds on rationality are typically generated by institutional and informational properties specific to the market in question, which arise and are sustained by structural dynamics that do not originate in or reduce to individuals' decisions or psychologic.. (shrink)

Psychologists and economists often ask similar questions about human behaviour. This volume brings together contributions from leaders in both disciplines.The editorial introduction discusses methodological differences between the two which have until now limited the development of mutually beneficial lines of research. Psychologists have objected to what they see as an excessive formalism in economic modelling and an unrealistic degree of sophistication in the behaviour of individuals, while economists criticize the absence of a general psychological framework into which most results can (...) be fitted and the lack of welfare implications in their theories. The editors encourage scholars to exploit the strengths of each discipline - the ability of psychologists to understand the feelings and motivation of individuals; and the experience of economists to develop normative frameworks.The editors then highlight the links between the contributions by grouping them according to central themes in the study of rationality and well-being:1. The causes and consequences of 'irrational behaviour';2. The role of anticipatory feelings and imperfect self-knowledge on decision-making; 3. The way in which memory of past events and cost of thinking affect current decisions;4. The interaction between anticipated and remembered utility and its effects on the welfare of individuals; 5. Experimental practice on how to perform controlled experiments to test hypotheses.This exciting volume provides an excellent point of entry for anyone interested in the interface between economics and psychology. (shrink)

This paper reviews the largely psychological literature surrounding apparent failures of human rationality (sometimes referred to as 'the Rationality Wars') and locates it with respect to concepts and issues within more traditional epistemological inquiry. The goal is to bridge the gap between these two large and typically disconnected literatures – concerning rationality and the psychology of human reasoning, on the one hand, and epistemological theories of justified or rational belief, on the other – and to do so in (...) such as way as to expose interesting points of contact and convergence between them. (shrink)

Recent advances in the cognitive psychology of inference have been of great interest to philosophers of science. The present paper reviews one such area, namely studies based upon Wason's 4-card selection task. It is argued that interpretation of the results of the experiments is complex, because a variety of inference strategies may be used by subjects to select evidence needed to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis. Empirical evidence suggests that which strategy is used depends in part on the semantic, (...) syntactic, and pragmatic context of the inference problem at hand. Since the factors of importance are also present in real-world science, and similarly complicate its interpretation, the selection task, though it does not present a quick fix, represents a kind of microcosm of great utility for the understanding of science. Several studies which have examined selection strategies in more complex problem-solving environments are also reviewed, in an attempt to determine the limits of generalizability of the simpler selection tasks. Certain interpretational misuses of laboratory research are described, and a claim made that the issue of whether or not scientists are rational should be approached by philosophers and psychologists with appropriate respect for the complexities of the issue. (shrink)

Most investigations into how people make risky choices have employed a simple drosophila: monetary gambles involving stated outcomes and probabilities. People are asked to make decisions from description . When people decide whether to back up their computer hard drive, cross a busy street, or go out on a date, however, they do not enjoy the convenience of stated outcomes and probabilities. People make such decisions either in the void of ignorance or in the twilight of their own often limited (...) experience of such real-world options. In the latter case, they make decisions from experience . Recent research has consistently documented that decisions from description and decisions from experience can lead to substantially different choices. Key in this description–experience gap is people’s treatment of rare events. In this paper, I briefly review studies that have documented the description–experience gap, offer several explanations for this gap, and discuss to what extent people’s decisions from experience are in conflict with benchmarks of rationality. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 454-457.

Rationality within Modern Psychological Theory examines the rational and irrational dimensions of human nature and of the psyche and logos through the lenses of classical philosophy and modern psychology.