The formal structure of practical rationality

The concept of rationality is strongly normative. Indeed, qualifying an action as rational implies demarcating spaces of inclusion and exclusion that have a practical impact. However, the notion of rationality is not fully explained. In this article I intend to clarify the constitutive elements of the formal structure of practical rationality in order to facilitate its conceptualisation.

Subjective Reasons

Objective reasons depend on how things are. Subjective reasons depend on how things seem. Subjective reasons determine what it is rational to do. This chapter develops and defends a new account of subjective reasons, and thereby of practical rationality, in part via critical reflection on the leading alternative. The positive proposal is a modal one, which builds on the theories of objective and possessed reasons. Roughly, what appears to a person to be the case is a subjective reason for them to act when, in some nearby epistemically possible world in which it obtains, it is right in some way for them to act. The chapter concludes by showing how the framework might be further extended to capture the idea that rationality depends on credences, desires, and normative beliefs.

Chinese Think Tanks: from Practical Rationality to Social Institutional Reflection

Introduction. The article examines the formation of a network of Chinese think tanks as a special socio-political institution – a research system, not only aimed at solving the tasks set by the state, but also, due to the specifics of these tasks, exerting an ever-increasing influence on the same state is the customer. This process is been studied from the standpoint of social reflection, determined by the modern “fluid” nature of society, which is becoming in conditions of increasing socio-cultural dynamics and risk. Today think tanks, as a very popular institution in the West, are actively discussed in the scientific community in the context of their engagement and loss of expert independence. At the same time, in China, where such structures appeared later than in the United States and Europe, their influence on political and economic decision-making is recognized as consistently high. The aim of the study is to classify the leading Chinese think tanks and analyze their activities from the perspective of sociological reflection.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the study was the approach of reflective sociology, with the help of which was made an attempt to analyze the activities of modern analytical centers in the PRC and their focus. The empirical base was made up of publicly available data on the activities of Chinese think tanks, included in the list of the best, according to the American Go Global Think Tank Index Report, on the basis of which a study of the nature of these organizations and their topics was carried out.Results and discussion. Based on the study of the structural dynamics and research topics of Chinese think tanks, it is argued that the development of such a network since the 2000s is due to the reorientation of Chinese foreign policy from two “superpowers” to Europe and countries lying on the “new silk road” to it. There is a widespread opinion in the West that think tanks are capable of influencing political decision-making only in Western-style democratic societies. An analysis of the activities of modern think tanks in China refutes this opinion and demonstrates that it is there that ideas are discussed, which subsequently form the basis for political decision-making by the leadership of the PRC.Conclusion. Interaction with Europe, as the main foreign policy goal, has led to a social reflection of problems in the construction of comprehensive cooperation with it. Such a reflection combined with social practical rationality, led to an appeal to European rationalism with the aim of both understanding Europe and trying to establish communication with it using a discourse that it understands. The work of Chinese think tanks, whose importance in shaping China’s foreign policy is growing, is aimed at solving this problem.

Introduction

In the Introduction, the author defines epistemic rationality by contrasting it with practical rationality: epistemic rationality is aimed at truth, while practical rationality is aimed at other goals. To more clearly explain this definition, the author uses a science fiction dialogue with a philosophical anthropologist from a planet orbiting one of the Alpha Centauri stars to dramatize Western epistemology’s susceptibility to intellectual pathologies. The author resolves to recapitulate the history of Western epistemology to try to diagnose its susceptibility to these pathologies and to find a cure. His stated goal for this book is not to refute other approaches to epistemology, but to articulate a new vision and a new pathway for addressing issues in epistemology. The Introduction ends with an overview of the book.

Uma leitura ética e filosófica do dano moral

Aborda a hipótese de que a responsabilidade civil, na tarefa corrigir perdas imerecidas e danos injustos envolvendo dano moral - que é a violação a um interesse extrapatrimonial protegido juridicamente - pode ser fortalecida a partir de uma leitura ética. Adota como pressuposto teórico que o Direito possui duas dimensões: a factual e a ideal, na esteira do que defende Robert Alexy em Teoria da Argumentação Jurídica (2014). Apresenta que no tocante ao dano moral, na primeira dimensão (factual) existe o arcabouço jurídico dos bens extrapatrimoniais protegidos juridicamente, ao passo que na segunda (ideal) defende-se que há os bens humanos básicos, os quais complementam e fortalecem a análise dos bens extrapatrimoniais no tocante a identificação e quantificação do dano moral. Aprofunda a interface dos bens extrapatrimoniais extraídos do Direito pátrio com os bens humanos básicos formulados por Bebhinn Donnelly – em A natural law approach to normativity (2007) -, Mark Murphy – em Natural law in jurisprudence and politics (2006) e Natural law and practical rationality (2001) - e John Finnis – em Lei natural e direitos naturais (2007) e Aquinas: moral, political and legal theory (2008).

Ability, relevant possibilities, and the fixity of the past

In several writings, John Martin Fischer has argued that those who deny a principle about abilities that he calls ‘the Fixity of the Past’ are committed to absurd conclusions concerning practical reasoning. I argue that Fischer’s ‘practical rationality’ argument does not succeed. First, Fischer’s argument may be vulnerable to the charge that it relies on an equivocation concerning the notion of an ‘accessible’ possible world. Secondly, even if Fischer’s argument can be absolved of that charge, I maintain that it can be defeated by appeal to an independently plausible principle about practical reasoning that I call ‘the Knowledge Principle’. In addition, I point out that Fischer’s own presentation of his argument is flawed by the fact that the principle that he labels ‘the Fixity of the Past’ does not, in fact, succeed in representing the intuitive idea that it is intended to capture. Instead, the debate (including Fischer’s practical rationality argument) should be recast in terms of a different (and stronger) principle, which I call ‘the Principle of Past-Limited Abilities’. The principal contribution of my paper is thus twofold: to clarify the terms of the debate about the fixity of the past, and to undermine Fischer’s ‘practical rationality’ argument for the fixity of the past.

The Metaphysics of Practical Rationality: Intentional and Deontic Cognition

Despite growing appreciation in recent decades of the importance of shared intentional mental states as a foundation for everything from divergences in primate evolution, to the institution of communal norms, to trends in the development of modernity as a sociopolitical phenomenon, we lack an adequate understanding of the relationship between individual and shared intentionality. At the same time, it is widely appreciated that deontic reasoning concerning what ought, may, and ought not be done is, like reasoning about our intentions, an exercise of practical rationality. Taking advantage of this fact, I use a plan-theoretic semantics for the deontic modalities as a basis for understanding individual and shared intentions. This results in a view that accords well with what we currently have reason to believe about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of norm psychology and shared intentionality in human beings, and where original intentionality can be understood in terms of the shared intentionality of a community.

A Discourse-Theoretical Conception of Practical Reason

Contemporary discussions about practical reason or practical rationality invoke four competing views, which, by reference to their historical models, can be named as follows: Aristotelian, Hobbesian, Kantian, and Nietzschean. The subject matter of this chapter is a defence of the Kantian conception of practical rationality in the interpretation of discourse theory. At the core lies the justification and the application of the rules of discourse. An argument consisting of three parts is presented to justify the rules of discourse. The three parts are as follows: a transcendental-pragmatic argument, an argument that takes account of the maximization of individual utility, and an empirical premise addressing an interest in correctness. Within the framework of the problem of application, the chapter outlines a justification of human rights and of the basic institutions of the democratic constitutional state on the basis of discourse theory.

Sensibility First

In the practical realm just as in the theoretical realm, everything comes down to human sensibility as an equally empirical and non-empirical primitive starting point that constitutively motivates, intentionally pervades, and intentionally structures our innately-specified yet also “human, all-too-human” capacities for theoretical and practical rationality, all the way up. Strong Kantian non-conceptualism says that according to Kant, the faculty of human intuition or Anschauung, that is, human inner and outer sense perception, together with the faculty of imagination or Einbildungskraft, jointly constitute this sensible starting point for objective cognition and theoretical reason; and Kantian non-intellectualism says that according to Kant, human affect, desire, and moral emotion—in a word, the human heart—jointly constitute this sensible starting point for free agency and practical reason. Conjoined, they provide what I call the Sensibility First approach, which, in a nutshell, says that human rationality flows from the groundedness of our discursive, intellectual, and embodiment-neutral powers in our sensible, non-intellectual, and essentially embodied powers, without in any way reducing the former to the latter. If I’m correct about all this, then the result is a sharply non-classical and unorthodox, hence “shocking,” nevertheless fully unified and textually defensible approach to Kant’s proto-Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1768 to 1772), Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1781 to 1787) and post-Critical philosophy (i.e., from the late 1780s to the late 1790s) that encompasses his theoretical philosophy and the practical philosophy alike.