Transversality is the keyword that permeates the spirit of these thirteen essays spanning almost half a century, from 1965 to 2009.

Hwa Yol’s new book has a very long title. And it has a very long title because it is a very big book, consisting of 13 pre-published essays in various journals. The binding textuality of the 13 “intercultural texts” has as its axial component the concept/metaphor of transversal rationality. This axial component provides the range and coherence of topics and themes that are developed throughout the work. The 13 essays that make up the main body of the volume (...) are accompanied by a seventy page bibliography. This veritable library of works relevant to the project itself testifies of the prodigious scholarship that informs Hwa Yol’s lifetime of multidisciplinary research and publication that has elicited the respect and admiration from his many readers and reviewers.Given the very nature of the work under discussion, namely a collection of 13 essays authored on different occasions in different journals for a varied readership, it is difficult to consolidate Hwa Yol’s contribution into a sin. (shrink)

A TrajectoryIn an essay that is now a classic piece in understanding post-modern culture, Jean-François Lyotard wrote, “[e]clecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and ‘retro’ clothes in Hong Kong” (Lyotard 1989: 76). The boundaries have become blurred in both positive and negative senses. Geographical borders have loosened through ever-increasing mobility as cultural exchanges become more accessible (...) and are rapidly flowing through electronic exchanges in the cyberspace arena. Almost a quarter century after Lyotard described the present era as the time of eclecticism, the world has become more global, and the demand for cross-, inter-, and multi-cultural knowledge has become stronger than ever. In this context, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and world-citizenship have become some of the expressions with which the present time is defi. (shrink)

The disruptions of coronavirus disease 2019 in the year 2020 reshaped all aspects of life, including religious practices and rituals. As more religious activities shifted to digital space during the lockdown periods, there was a growing need to examine the link between religion and digital media. Using the model of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, this article draws on the notion of transversal rationality and concepts of rationality, cognitive, evaluative and pragmatic to posit that COVID-19 (...) has configured traditional missional and liturgical spaces in ways that locate the agency of the marginalised at the centre. The article highlights how COVID-19 configured Christian mission as it disrupted power dynamics through religious digital spaces, which emerged as a new way of reimaging a missional church. These new digital spaces mediate between interaction and ‘telepresence’, embodied in the representations of the sacred available through online religious systems in practices where users are no longer ordinary believers – but religious participants who have power and freedom to choose. Although this is not a new phenomenon, the article concludes that such spaces created by COVID-19 shifts in power dynamics present opportunities for ordinary members to reinvent new meanings on what it means to be present or absent, to name, narrate and reinterpret the divine and forge new meanings towards participating in the mission of God.Contribution: Although this is not a new phenomenon, this article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

This second of three articles outlining the development and practice of a different approach to neurotheology discusses the construction of a suitable methodology for the project based on the work of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. It explores the origin and contours of his concept of postfoundational rationality, its potential as a locus for epistemological parity between science and religion and the distinctive and unique transversal space model for interdisciplinary dialogue which he builds on these. It then proposes a (...) further development of the model which has the potential to produce a very different type of additional and original dialogical outcome. While such “transversal” outputs may initially seem counter and strange they not only flow naturally from the models’ own inherent dynamics but also open up the possibility of a distinctively different form of neurotheology. (shrink)

The article touches upon the problem of concept “Indian tradition of rationality”. The author recalls a genetic link of the concept with Western philosophy. She notices the complexity of its application to Indian material, gives some examples in which the use of Western concepts of “reason”, “methods of cognition”, etc., leads to a distortion of the text’s meaning, and when an application of the criteria of Western logic to analysis of Indian philosophical discourse gives the readers an impression of (...) its absurdity. However, according to the author’s mind, the difficulties with the applying of Western concepts are not the sufficient grounds to abandon them. This conclusion follows from the presence of comparative studies by researchers belonging to both traditions, who compare successfully Western and Indian kinds of logico-epistemological type of rationality. The difficulties just bring up the questions about new instrumental concepts and methods of comparative studies more adequate to Indian culture. There are two possible directions for the studies of Indian tradition of rationality in connection with the revision of contents of the concepts in Western post- modern philosophy. In the first of them the concept of rationality can not to be used at all, then the phenomenology of practices of Indian discourse becomes the subject of research, i.e. the discourse images in different contexts, its explicit and implicit foundations and aims, which aren’t coincide with Western ones. In the second case Indian rationality can be analyzed in accordance with the criteria of transversal reason and transversal rationality. (shrink)

In his three books J. Wentzel van Huyssteen develops a complex and helpful notion of rationality, avoiding the extremes of foundationalism and postmodern relativism and deconstruction. Drawing from several postmodern philosophers of science and evolutionary epistemologists who seek to devise a usable notion of rationality, he weaves together a view that allows for a genuine duet betweenscience and theology. In the process he challenges much contemporary nonfoundationalist theology as well as the philosophical naïveté of some cosmologists and sociobiologists.

This book addresses the urgent need for a large and systematic analysis of current interdisciplinary (ID) research and practice. It demonstrates how ID is essentially a cognitive phenomenon, something different from the frivolous and inconsequential attempt of trying to overcome the disciplinary competencies and exigencies. By ID, the authors show that it is a manifestation of the transversal rationality that underlies current scientific activity. It is the very progress of specialized disciplines that requires interdisciplinary new research practices and (...) new forms of articulation between domains, something that has a strong impact on the traditional disciplinary structure of scientific and educational institutions. Divided into two parts, the book presents a conceptual framework as well as several case studies on ID practices. The book aims at covering three main themes. It contributes to the stabilization of ID meaning and characterizes the main ID theorizations which have been proposed until now. It builds an innovative and broad understanding of the several ID determinations as an essentially cognitive phenomenon and of its institutional implications at the level of disciplinary structures and curricular organization. Finally, it distinguishes and maps the diversity of ID procedures and practices which are being used and tested by contemporary scientific and educational institutions. This book is addressed to philosophers, scientists and every one interested in science production and reproduction, including science teaching. (shrink)

This collection of essays is a critical document in Continental philosophy, reflecting its recent history, its present state, and its debt to Calvin O. Schrag. It begins with an overview of philosophy's role and responsibility or "task" and of Schrag's contributions to it, written from the perspective of a resolute defender of the phenomenological tradition that Schrag's work has extended and reconfigured. The essays are organized around the four conceptual figures widely considered Schrag's most significant and original philosophical achievements: (...) class='Hi'>transversal rationality, the self after post-modernity, the fourth cultural value sphere, and communication praxis. The authors focus on topics ranging from Cartesian rationality to Foucauldian rational relativism; from transcendence in relation to the self to the Schragean self's connections with discourse, action, and community; from religion's disruptive presence in contemporary philosophy to recent developments in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Are human rights negotiable? Jacques Derrida argued that it is necessary to negotiate the nonnegotiable to save the nonnegotiable. This paper defends this claim while arguing for what Calvin Schrag called an ethics of the fitting response and finding such a response in Amartya Sen’s realization-focused comparative approach to justice. For Derrida, the aporetic character of urgency produces decisions which must be made outside the institutional limits of decision theory. That calls for a deconstruction of the axiomatics of rights in (...) institutional settings. It also makes urgent the need for a deinstitutionalized ethics undeceived by the challenge of making judgments in aporias. Using Ted Honderich’s humanism as counterfoil, the argument moves through Derrida’s concept of "contradictory coherence" to Schrag’s transverse rationality, which thinks with deconstruction in order to think against its negative outcomes. The paper ends by suggesting that Schrag's communicative praxeology forges an ethics compatible with Sen’s threshold conditions to determine rights through freedoms. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to contribute to a more robust theory of leadership that shifts the frame of reference from leadership as exclusively facilitated through a single inspired leader to one that includes the view of leadership as an emergent and complex social phenomenon. The article begins with a review of the leader-centric approaches that dominated much of twentieth century leadership studies then moves on to present contemporary critiques of leader-centric approaches leading to an alternative perspective of leadership (...) as an emergent and complex social phenomenon. Viewing leadership as an emergent and complex social phenomenon changes our attitude regarding the roles that leaders and others play in the creation of leadership. A central theme of this article is the impact that the concept of emergence has on leadership theory. In response to this changing attitude, the article then moves to return to and reassess the ontological, epistemological and ethical grounds of leadership and concludes that there is an underlying philosophy that supports viewing leadership as an emergent social phenomenon and further suggests that recent work in virtue epistemology along with Calvin Schrag’s theory of communicative praxis and transversal rationality, can facilitate a better understanding of leadership as an emergent social phenomenon. (shrink)

Philosophical Papers is useful for readers interested in the story of twentieth century continental philosophy. The book leads the reader throughout the shifts and turns in the often serpentine development of the philosophical perspectives within continental thought that have now become the legacy of our time. The author carries on a conversation, which at times congeals into a confrontation, with the principal proponents of the various philosophical persuasions. They include Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida, Deleuze, (...) and Lyotard. Insofar as three nineteenth century philosophers—in particular, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—figured so decisively in the shaping of twentieth century continental thought, they too become part of the wider story being told. The concluding essays in the volume display the most recent efforts of the author to come to grips with the consequences of rationality between the universal claims of reason in modernity and the particular, heterogeneous, and local narratives of power and desire in postmodernity. The location of rationality betwixt and between the modern and the postmodern provides a space for a dynamics of transversal rationality oriented toward a convergence without coincidence, both in the life of thought and the life of action. (shrink)

Thomas McCarthy has provided a trenchant critique of the deconstructionist turn in recent philosophy and has outlined a program of reconstruction in its aftermath. He develops his version of reconstructionist philosophy against the backdrop of Kant's doctrine of critical reason and the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. However, McCarthy's reconstructionist design is not simply an appropriation and defense of Habermas. He provides a critical reformulation of the Habermasian position, deftly using Habermas against himself. The author is in accord both with (...) McCarthy's disposition to problematize the premises of deconstruction and his call for philosophical reconstruction. In continuing the conversation, however, he distances himself farther than does McCarthy from the criteriological concept of rationality that was proposed by Kant and which continues to inform Habermas's requirement for the grounding of validity claims. In the process the author proposes a new approach to the resources of reason along the lines of what he has come to call the dynamics of transversal rationality. (shrink)

Furthering the dialogue with J. Wentzel van Huyssteen over his way of reconciling Christianity and science while reflecting on human uniqueness, I offer a philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of transsexuality. The focus of my analysis is the implications of transsexuality for the metaphysics of reductive naturalism. Envisioning a pluralistic ontology of the sexed human body, I propose to account for human sexuality within the general framework of normative pragmatism. The context of my reflections is a theology of sexual diversity, (...) which I believe van Huyssteen has good reasons to endorse. (shrink)

. In my recent work I argued that the religion and sciencedialogue is most successful when done locally and contextually. However, I also argued against theology's epistemic isolation in a pluralist, postmodern world, and for a postfoundationalist notion of human rationality that reveals the interdisciplinary, public nature of all theological reflection. I now want to explore the possibility that, when we look at what the prehistory of thehuman mind reveals about the biological roots of all human rationality, some (...) forms of contemporary evolutionary epistemology may actually hold the key to understanding the kind of cognitive fluidity that enables true interdisciplinary reflection. Philosophically the religion and science dialogue benefits from this move when a postfoundationalist notion of rationality redescribes the dynamic interaction of our various disciplinary dialogues with one another as aform of transversal reasoning. Transversality in this sense justifies and urges an acknowledgment of multiple patterns of interpretation as one moves across the borders and boundaries of different disciplines. (shrink)

This paper proposes a transversal lecture of the Phenomenology of Mind from Hegel by following in the text the idea of death. To show the different figures of the death in the book, the author uses three lecture`s key: a) the death as natural end of the life, b) the fear of the death as regulative idea by the constitution the society, c) overcoming death through one kind of rational way of survival.

When fcc single crystals with high-symmetry crystal orientations are deformed to moderate strains by rolling, tension or channel die compression, long dislocation boundaries inclined to the extension axis form. Similarly, long dislocation boundaries are often found in grains embedded in polycrystals deformed in the same manner. These extended planar boundaries are characteristically - 30-40° from the extension direction and contain the transverse specimen axis. The objective of the present article is to demonstrate that EPBs formed during plane strain deformation are (...) parallel to equivalent slip planes, a pair of hypothetical slip systems used for analyses of the strain and crystal rotation components in place of the larger number of physical slip systems. The coincidence of EPBs and equivalent slip plane inclinations is shown to account for persistent observations of EPBs in the angle range - 30-40° from the rolling direction, in rolled single crystals of various initial orientations. The tendency of EPBs towards tilt or twist boundary character can also be rationalized on the basis of the equivalent slip system concept and consideration of the dislocation types available to be incorporated into EPBs. (shrink)

What type of reason will work under the present conditions? To answer this question a meaningful conception of reason (as distinct from rationality) has to be developed, and is contemporary conditions (due to change in the field of rationality) have to be specified.In part I. of the paper, the radically altered structure of rationality is analysed; it turns out to be characterized by rational disorder. Part II. offers a redefinition of reason; guided by the idea of justice (...) reason operates in transition from one rationality to another. This new kind of reason - "transversal reason " - is further elaborated in part III. It is regarded as a key-element of any type of reason. (shrink)

Against the assumption that legal and normative systems are coextensive with geopolitical units and national spaces, the article advocates for the need to study how different legal and normative semiospheres, within the same geopolitical unit and national space, often give rise to ‘normolects’ that are transversal to socio-economic classes, ethnicities, and cultural lifestyles. The concept of legal and normative ‘imaginaries’ is useful to come to terms with the legal and normative semiotic ideology of such normolects, including their non-verbal dimension (...) and legal-normative semiotic ideologies. More generally, the article prompts legal scholars, and particularly semioticians of law, not to focus exclusively on inter-cultural awareness in legal-normative language but to concentrate also on intra-cultural awareness. As a case study, the article analyses a drawing through which the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visualized and advertised for a bill of reform of the Italian judicial system by his Minister of Justice, Angelino Alfano. The semiotic analysis of this visual artifact casts new light on the controversial political and judicial figure of Mr Berlusconi. The drawing is read as a visual embodiment of the conflict between two different legal and normative ideologies within the present-day Italian political and judicial arena. The paradoxes that underpin this iconography of law and mar a rational confrontation of legal-normative arguments in contemporary Italy are uncovered. (shrink)

Analysis of three kinds of flow of viscous, incompressible, electrically conducting fluids in high-aspect-ration rectangular channels subjected to transverse magnetic fields: turbulent flow in the presence of a d-c magnetic field, and both laminar and turbulent induction-driven flows.

What happened during the fairly long silence following The History of Sexuality? … had he [Foucault] not trapped himself within the concept of power relations?’ asks Deleuze. According to him, Foucault would have answered ‘that power does not take life as its objective without revealing or giving rise to a life that resists power’ . The object of this essay is to assess what happens ‘if the transversal relations of resistance continue to become restratified’. When the long silence was (...) finally broken, Foucault proposed a more affirmative – aesthetic – mode of countering power, but what exactly is the contemporary pertinence of the late Foucault’s insistence that an aesthetics of existence provides us with the means to resist an over-determination by power. This essay follows the trajectory of Foucault’s turn to aesthetics: from care of the self as a reaction against constraining governmental regulations and institutionalised normalisations; to self-formation as a more affirmative strategy; to the present day in which cultural capitalism has usurped all aesthetic strategies of resistance. The essay therefore questions the potentially subversive status of self-creation in the light of the fact that contemporary governmental rationalities encourage self-stylising individuality, alternative life-style choices and original ways of being different. It concludes by arguing in favour of its continued relevance. (shrink)

This paper explores convergences and divergences in the thoughts of Gaston Bachelard and Paulin Hountondji and their notions of rational pluralism and true pluralism, respectively. There is a problematic in which for Bachelard rational pluralism can be comprehended as the various epistemological profiles to understand a scientific phenomenon, as well as the coherence that such theories have among themselves, while Huontondji is concerned with criticizing a collective ethnological view of philosophy and considers that the true pluralism is precisely the capacity (...) of philosophical singularities that appropriate the history of philosophy. Using Hountondji's criticism to exemplify the pluralism in African philosophy, his references to Bachelard in [African philosophy - Myth and reality], and other texts, we hope to get a better understanding of the rupture between ‘developments’ and ‘new involvements’ that reconstruct the old knowledge synthesized out of old philosophical perspectives. Here, I look for transversal dialogues among the few references to Bachelard in Hountondji's philosophy to find new possibilities for dialogue and engagement from an African phenomenology perspective. Thus, we study links between European and African thought, so presenting a new perspective on studies of Bachelardian philosophy itself. Keywords: systems, phenomenology, pluralism, discontinuities, African philosophy, Hountondji, Bachelard. (shrink)

The global crisis in different areas of human life demands to look at the values. But not in an abstract and empty way, but as that which gives meaning, dignifies and guides human action. In this content, in the educational area it is important to consider the formation of values, as an essential element in any curriculum that generates reflection about the situation and options for the survival of life, starting from the personal area to the social. It is not (...) an exaggeration to talk about the fact that survival on Earth is in danger, either because we are facing a global crisis, for there are “… various ways of social domination and injustice, unfounded relativisms, dichotomies and reductionisms; the predominance of instrumental rationality, of quantitative, of material…” The research of the meaning facing the > can be found in the ethical reflection of values. The study and analysis of these matters from formal educational spaces is current and it can be addressed from the transversal axis. Therefore, teacher training in this area is fundamental, unfortunately in 2018, the philosophical and axiological topics are disappearing from some Mexican study programs, as is intended to be done in the reform of normal education in Mexico, of which undoubtedly demonstrates, a setback. Key words: formation, values, ethics, global crisis, transversal axis. Originally published in Voces de la educación, vol. 1, no. 1, 2000. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Some combinations of attitudes--of beliefs, credences, intentions, preferences, hopes, fears, and so on--do not fit together right: they are incoherent. A natural idea is that there are requirements of "structural rationality" that forbid us from being in these incoherent states. Yet a number of surprisingly difficult challenges arise for this idea. These challenges have recently led many philosophers to attempt to minimize or eliminate structural rationality, arguing that it is just a "shadow" of "substantive rationality"--that is, correctly (...) responding to one's reasons. -/- In *Fitting Things Together*, Alex Worsnip pushes back against this trend--defending the view that structural rationality is a genuine kind of rationality, distinct from and irreducible to substantive rationality, and tackling the most important challenges for this view. In so doing, he gives an original positive theory of the nature of coherence and structural rationality that explains how the diverse range of instances of incoherence can be unified under a general account, and how facts about coherence are normatively significant. He also shows how a failure to focus on coherence requirements as a distinctive phenomenon and distinguish them adequately from requirements of substantive rationality has led to confusion and mistakes in several substantive debates in epistemology and ethics. -/- Taken as a whole, Fitting Things Together provides the first sustained defense of the view that structural rationality is a genuine, autonomous, unified, and normatively significant phenomenon. (shrink)

Commonsense Consequentialism is a book about morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, Douglas W. Portmore defends a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. Broadly construed, consequentialism is the view that an act's deontic status is determined by how its outcome ranks relative to those of the available alternatives on some evaluative ranking. Portmore argues that outcomes should (...) be ranked, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason the relevant agent has to desire that each outcome obtains and that, when outcomes are ranked in this way, we arrive at a version of consequentialism that can better account for our commonsense moral intuitions than even many forms of deontology can. What's more, Portmore argues that we should accept this version of consequentialism, because we should accept both that an agent can be morally required to do only what she has most reason to do and that what she has most reason to do is to perform the act that would produce the outcome that she has most reason to want to obtain.Although the primary aim of the book is to defend a particular moral theory, Portmore defends this theory as part of a coherent whole concerning our commonsense views about the nature and substance of both morality and rationality. Thus, it will be of interest not only to those working on consequentialism and other areas of normative ethics, but also to those working in metaethics. Beyond offering an account of morality, Portmore offers accounts of practical reasons, practical rationality, and the objective/subjective obligation distinction. (shrink)

Kiesewetter defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. He provides a defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, an evidence-relative account of reason, and an explanation of structural irrationality in relation to these accounts.

How should we understand the emotional rationality? This first part will explore two models of cognition and analogy strategies, test their intuition about the emotional desire. I distinguish between subjective and objective desire, then presents with a feeling from the "paradigm of drama" export semantics, here our emotional repertoire is acquired all the learned, and our emotions in the form of an object is fixed. It is pretty well in line with the general principles of rationality, especially the (...) lowest reasonable principles. Turned to the second part of this side of reasonable. I will inquire how emotional beliefs, desires, and behaviors contribute to the rationality. I will present a very general biological hypothesis: emotions by controlling highlights the characteristics of perception and reasoning, so that we remove the difficulties due in particular to lead to paralysis; they are being simulated by a simplified perception of information, thus limiting our practice and cognitive choice. How are we to understand emotional or axiological rationality? I pursue analogies with both the cognitive and the strategic models, testing them against intuitions about emotional desires. We distinguish two different classes of desires, the subjective and the objective, and propose that emotions have a semantics that derives from "paradigmatic scenarios", in terms of which our emotional repertoire is learned and the formal objects of our emotions fixed. This fits in well with emerging facts about how our emotional capacities develop, and it can also be squared with the general principles of rationality, particularly minimal rationality. In the second part, I return to the perspective of rationality. I ask how emotions contribute to the rationality of beliefs, desires, and behavior. I proffer a very general biological hypothesis: Emotions spare us the paralysis potentially induced by a particular predicament by controlling the salience of features of perception and reasoning; they temporarily mimic the informational encapsulation of perception and so circumscribe our practical and cognitive options. (shrink)

Bayes nets are a powerful tool for researchers in statistics and artificial intelligence. This chapter demonstrates that they are also of much use for philosophers and psychologists interested in (Bayesian) rationality. To do so, we outline the general methodology of Bayes nets modeling in rationality research and illustrate it with several examples from the philosophy and psychology of reasoning and argumentation. Along the way, we discuss the normative foundations of Bayes nets modeling and address some of the methodological (...) problems it raises. (shrink)

General introduction -- The concept of science in the context of Western Civilization and the debate between science and faith -- Relationship between science and religion -- The unity of reason -- General conclusion.

The slogan that rationality is about responding to reasons has a turbulent history: once taken for granted; then widely rejected; now enjoying a resurgence. The slogan is made harder to assess by an ever-increasing plethora of distinctions pertaining to reasons and rationality. Here we are occupied with two such distinctions: that between subjective and objective reasons, and that between structural rationality (a.k.a. coherence) and substantive rationality (a.k.a. reasonableness). Our paper has two main aims. The first is (...) to defend dualism about rationality – the view that affirms a deep distinction between structural and substantive rationality – against its monistic competitors. The second aim is to answer the question: with the two distinctions drawn, what becomes of the slogan that rationality is about responding to reasons? We’ll argue that structural rationality cannot be identified with responsiveness to any kind of reasons. As for substantive rationality, we join others in thinking that the most promising reasons-responsiveness account of substantive rationality will involve an “evidence-relative” understanding of reasons. But we also pose a challenge for making this idea precise – a challenge that ultimately calls into question the fundamentality of the notion of a reason even with respect to the analysis of substantive rationality. (shrink)

Repeatedly and successfully, the celebrated Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick has reached out to a broad audience beyond the confines of his discipline, addressing ethical and social problems that matter to every thoughtful person. Here Nozick continues his search for the connections between philosophy and "ordinary" experience. In the lively and accessible style that his readers have come to expect, he offers a bold theory of rationality, the one characteristic deemed to fix humanity's "specialness." What are principles for? asks Nozick. (...) We could act simply on whim, or maximize our self-interest and recommend that others do the same. As Nozick explores rationality of decision and rationality of belief, he shows how principles actually function in our day-to-day thinking and in our efforts to live peacefully and productively with each other. Throughout, the book combines daring speculations with detailed investigations to portray the nature and status of rationality and the essential role that imagination plays in this singular human aptitude. (shrink)

In this urbane and witty book, Ronald de Sousa disputes the widespread notion that reason and emotion are natural antagonists.

A powerful critique of nudge theory and the paternalist policies of behavioral economics, and an argument for a more inclusive form of rationality.

Additive theories of rationality, as I use the term, are theories that hold that an account of our capacity to reflect on perceptually-given reasons for belief and desire-based reasons for action can begin with an account of what it is to perceive and desire, in terms that do not presuppose any connection to the capacity to reflect on reasons, and then can add an account of the capacity for rational reflection, conceived as an independent capacity to ‘monitor’ and ‘regulate’ (...) our believing-on-the-basis-of-perception and our acting-on-the-basis-of-desire. I show that a number of recent discussions of human rationality are committed to an additive approach, and I raise two difficulties for this approach, each analogous to a classic problem for Cartesian dualism. The interaction problem concerns how capacities conceived as intrinsically independent of the power of reason can interact with this power in what is intuitively the right way. The unity problem concerns how an additive theorist can explain a rational subject's entitlement to conceive of the animal whose perceptual and desiderative life he or she oversees as ‘I’ rather than ‘it’. I argue that these difficulties motivate a general skepticism about the additive approach, and I sketch an alternative, ‘transformative’ framework in which to think about the cognitive and practical capacities of a rational animal. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the relationship between epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, and I attempt to delineate their respective roles in typical instances of theoretical reasoning. My primary concern is with the instrumentalist conception of epistemic rationality: the view that epistemic rationality is simply a species of instrumental rationality, viz. instrumental rationality in the service of one's cognitive or epistemic goals. After sketching the relevance of the instrumentalist conception to debates over naturalism and (...) 'the ethics of belief', I argue that, despite enjoying considerable popularity among both epistemologists and philosophers of science, it is ultimately indefensible. Having thus argued for the distinctness of epistemic and instrumental rationality, I attempt to clarify the role played by each in typical instances of theoretical reasoning. I suggest that being theoretically rational--that is, being proficient with respect to theoretical reasoning--is best construed as a hybrid virtue, inasmuch as it involves manifesting sensitivity to two very different kinds of reasons. (shrink)