Some Problems about Rationality

1967 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lukes
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Rational Criticism

In what follows I shall discuss a philosophical problem arising out of the practice of anthropologists and sociologists which may be stated, in a general and unanalysed form, as follows: when I come across a set of beliefs which appear prima facie irrational, what should be my attitude towards them? Should I adopt a critical attitude, taking it as a fact about the beliefs that they are irrational, and seek to explain how they came to be held, how they manage to survive unprofaned by rational criticism, what their consequences are, etc? Or should I treat such beliefs charitably: should I begin from the assumption that what appears to me to be irrational may be interpreted as rational when fully understood in its context? More briefly, the problem comes down to whether or not there are alternative standards of rationality.

scholarly journals What’s my age again? Age categories as interactive kinds

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hane Htut Maung
Keyword(s):  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Older Adulthood ◽  
Causal Processes ◽  
Inductive Inferences ◽  
Homeostatic Property Cluster ◽  
Interactive Kinds

AbstractThis paper addresses a philosophical problem concerning the ontological status of age classification. For various purposes, people are commonly classified into categories such as “young adulthood”, “middle adulthood”, and “older adulthood”, which are defined chronologically. These age categories prima facie seem to qualify as natural kinds under a homeostatic property cluster account of natural kindhood, insofar as they capture certain biological, psychological, and social properties of people that tend to cluster together due to causal processes. However, this is challenged by the observation that age categories are historically unstable. The properties that age categories are supposed to capture are affected by healthcare and cultural developments, such that people are staying biologically, psychologically, and socially young for longer. Furthermore, the act of classifying people into age categories can bring about changes in their behaviors, which in turn alter the biological, psychological, and social properties that the categories are supposed to capture. Accordingly, I propose that age categories are best understood as interactive kinds that are influenced in dynamic ways by looping effects. I consider some implications of these looping effects for our classificatory practices concerning age, including how different disciplines may need to review the ways they define and use age categories in their inductive inferences.

Cognitive pluralism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Stich
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Belief Formation ◽  
Epistemic Relativism ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Cognitive Evaluation ◽  
Different Cultures

Descriptive cognitive pluralism claims that different people, or people in different cultures, go about the business of reasoning (that is, forming and revising beliefs) in significantly different ways. If descriptive cognitive pluralism is true, it lends considerable urgency to the venerable philosophical problem of deciding which strategies of belief formation and revision we ourselves should use. Normative cognitive pluralism claims that various quite different systems of reasoning may all be equally good. Epistemic relativism, which claims that different strategies of reasoning are best for different people, is a species of normative cognitive pluralism. Evaluative-concept pluralism claims that different people in different cultures use very different concepts of cognitive evaluation. Their notions of rationality and justification (or the closest equivalents in their culture) are quite different from ours. If this is right, it poses a prima facie challenge to a central strategy in analytic epistemology which tries to arbitrate between different systems of reasoning by determining which system best comports with our own concepts of epistemic evaluation.

Russia in international capital movement: Turn of tendencies

2017 ◽  
pp. 148-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Bulatov
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Structure ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Capital Movement ◽  
International Capital ◽  
Capital Outflow ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
National Capital ◽  
Future Situation ◽  
International Capital Movement

The paper deals with the past, current and future situation in Russian capital outflow and inflow. The specific features of the past situation (2001-2013) were as follows: big scale of Russian participation in international capital movement; turnover of national capital between Russia and offshores; stable surplus of capital outflow over inflow; inadequacy of industrial structure of capital inflow to Russian needs. The current situation is characterized by such new features as radical cut in volumes of capital outflow and inflow, some decrease in its level of offshorization. In the mid-term the probability of continuation of current trends is high. In the long-term the mode of Russian participation in international capital movement will prima facie depend on prospects of realization of systematic reforms in the Russian economy.

Dyadic Obligations over Complex Actions as Deontic Constraints in the Situation Calculus

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Claßen ◽  
James Delgrande
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Deontic Logic ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Situation Calculus ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Planning Techniques ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Reasoning About Action ◽  
The Given

With the advent of artificial agents in everyday life, it is important that these agents are guided by social norms and moral guidelines. Notions of obligation, permission, and the like have traditionally been studied in the field of Deontic Logic, where deontic assertions generally refer to what an agent should or should not do; that is they refer to actions. In Artificial Intelligence, the Situation Calculus is (arguably) the best known and most studied formalism for reasoning about action and change. In this paper, we integrate these two areas by incorporating deontic notions into Situation Calculus theories. We do this by considering deontic assertions as constraints, expressed as a set of conditionals, which apply to complex actions expressed as GOLOG programs. These constraints induce a ranking of "ideality" over possible future situations. This ranking in turn is used to guide an agent in its planning deliberation, towards a course of action that adheres best to the deontic constraints. We present a formalization that includes a wide class of (dyadic) deontic assertions, lets us distinguish prima facie from all-things-considered obligations, and particularly addresses contrary-to-duty scenarios. We furthermore present results on compiling the deontic constraints directly into the Situation Calculus action theory, so as to obtain an agent that respects the given norms, but works solely based on the standard reasoning and planning techniques.

“Against the Background of Pushkin”: S.I. Vavilov’s Speech at a Meeting at the Poet’s Monument in June 1949

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 550-559
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Yu. Samarin
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Ussr Academy ◽  
Russian Scientist ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
150Th Anniversary ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Press ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

The article introduces a previously unpublished speech of the outstanding Russian scientist-physicist, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, academician Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov, which was delivered by him at the anniversary meeting held on June 5, 1949, at the monument to Alexander Pushkin in Moscow in connection with the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the great Russian poet’s birth. S.I. Vavilov was a great connoisseur of Pushkin’s poetry and literature about him. In the second half of the 1940s, Vavilov actively participated in projects to prepare the anniversary celebrations dedicated to Alexander Pushkin and perpetuate the memory of the poet. Analysis of S.I. Vavilov’s speech, which, unlike his other “Pushkin speeches”, was not intended for the press, shows that in evaluating the great poet’s work, along with the use of cliches, traditional for the epoch, the scientist also took certain liberties. In particular, he did not utter the ritual words praising Stalin, the Communist Party and the Soviet State. The poet Ya.P. Polonsky quoted by Vavilov was not among the classics recognized by Soviet literary criticism, and the selected quote from him could be interpreted as a hint of condemnation of the surrounding Stalinist reality. Numerous fragments of the scientist’s personal diaries indicate his critical attitude towards the latter, in particular.

The Economics of wages and wages policy in the depression and recovery period: distinctive elements in the New Zealand debate, 1931- 1936

1970 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Endres
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Real Wage ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Recovery Period ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Currency Devaluation ◽  
Money Wage ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Compulsory Arbitration ◽  
Wage Cuts

This article discusses distinctive features of the New Zealand debate on the economics of wages and wages policy from 1931 up to the restoration of compulsory arbitration in 1936. Local economic orthodoxy proffered advice which, consistent with Keynes (1936), turned on the need for a general real wage reduction effected mostly through currency devaluation, rather than through further money wage cuts. Dissenters were critical of currency devaluation; they stressed excessively generous unemployment relief, real wage 'overhang' and structural real wage distorttons. Tentative estimates of both aggregate real product wage and labour productivity changes demonstrate, prima facie, that at least one strand in the dissenting argument was defensible.

G.K. Chesterton’s Works in Literary-Critical Review by K.I. Chukovsky

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
Svetlana Morozova ◽  
Dmitrij Zhatkin
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Disorder ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
The Social

The article is devoted to the perception of K.I. Chukovsky’s works by a famous English writer G.K. Chesterton. K.I. Chukovsky was one of the first to point out the ambiguity of the literary works by the English writer and called his journalistic activity more convincing. Describing G.K. Chesterton’s essays, K.I. Chukovsky believed that the writer is second to none in this genre. He praised G.K. Chesterton’s journalistic talent in responding to all the phenomena of contemporary social life. K.I. Chukovsky considered it obligatory for the Russian readers to familiarize themselves with the critical works of the English author. In the essay «Gilbert Chesterton. Manalive» (1924) K.I. Chukovsky substantiated why, for all the variety of genre forms that G.K. Chesterton used, Russian readers were familiar with only a few of his works. K.I. Chukovsky’s critical attitude to the novel «Manalive» is explained by his rejection of G.K. Chesterton’s utopian attitude to the social situation in England at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. In G.K. Chesterton’s works K.I. Chukovsky saw a simulation of revolutionary pathos that did not solve pressing issues of social disorder.

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