Poiesis as Decision Making: Shklovsky, Tynianov, Bakhtin

This article deals with the theories of Viktor Shklovsky and Iurii Tynianov from the perspective of decision science. It outlines how these two members of the Petersburg Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOIAZ) conceived of the writer as a rational agent pursuing a specific goal, and of the means at his or her disposal to attain it. Their approaches, the article illustrates, correspond closely with two specific types of rationality: “instrumental” and “bounded.” To conclude, the essay juxtaposes the formalists’ conceptualization of poetic creativity with Mikhail Bakhtin's view on the subject, arguing that the way he conceives of the strategies available to the literary author fits the label of “interactive rationality.”

Killing Ourselves

This essay notes varying definitions of suicide, reviews different perspectives on the morality of suicide, and describes a modified Kantian alternative that emphasizes human dignity. Then a relevant ideal of appreciation is introduced, going beyond the Kantian value of functioning as a rational agent. Appreciation of the good things in life is an ideal attitude that may give reasons for self-preservation even as rational agency diminishes, and it is not the same as wanting pleasure or comfort. The essay comments briefly on the special concerns relevant to public policies permitting assisted suicide.

Motivational Internalism and The Second-Order Desire Explanation

Both motivational internalism and externalism need to explain why sometimes moral judgments tend to motivate us. In this paper, I argue that Dreier’ second-order desire model cannot be a plausible externalist alternative to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. I explain that the relevant second-order desire is merely a constitutive requirement of rationality because that desire makes a set of desires more unified and coherent. As a rational agent with the relevant second-order desire is disposed towards coherence, she will have some motivation to act in accordance with her moral judgments. Dreier’s second-order desire model thus collapses into a form of internalism and cannot be a plausible externalist option to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation.

The Logic of Internal Rational Agent

In this paper, we introduce a new four-valued logic which may be viewed as a variation on the theme of Kubyshkina and Zaitsev's Logic of Rational Agent \textbf{LRA} \cite{LRA}. We call our logic $ \bf LIRA$ (Logic of Internal Rational Agency). In contrast to \textbf{LRA}, it has three designated values instead of one and a different interpretation of truth values, the same as in Zaitsev and Shramko's bi-facial truth logic \cite{ZS}. This logic may be useful in a situation when according to an agent's point of view (i.e. internal point of view) her/his reasoning is rational, while from the external one it might be not the case. One may use \textbf{LIRA}, if one wants to reconstruct an agent's way of thinking, compare it with respect to the real state of affairs, and understand why an agent thought in this or that way. Moreover, we discuss Kubyshkina and Zaitsev's necessity and possibility operators for \textbf{LRA} definable by means of four-valued Kripke-style semantics and show that, due to two negations (as well as their combination) of \textbf{LRA}, two more possibility operators for \textbf{LRA} can be defined. Then we slightly modify all these modalities to be appropriate for $\bf LIRA$. Finally, we formalize all the truth-functional $ n $-ary extensions of the negation fragment of $\bf LIRA$ (including $\bf LIRA$ itself) as well as their basic modal extension via linear-type natural deduction systems.

Facing Epistemic Authorities

Disrespect for the truth, the rise of conspiracy thinking, and a pervasive distrust in experts are widespread features of the post-truth condition in current politics and public opinion. Among the many good explanations of these phenomena there is one that is only rarely discussed: that something is wrong with our deeply entrenched intellectual standards of (i) using our own critical thinking without any restriction and (ii) respecting the judgment of every rational agent as epistemically relevant. This chapter argues that these two Enlightenment principles—the Principle of Unrestricted Critical Thinking and the Principle of Democratic Reason—not only conflict with what is rationally required from a purely epistemic point of view, but also further the spread of conspiracy theories and undermine trust in experts. As a result, we should typically defer to experts without using any of our own reasons regarding the subject matter

Don’t Even Think of It

This chapter examines the claim that there are certain beliefs, attitudes, and fantasies that are impermissible simply in virtue of their content. Although this claim has a recognizably deontological flavor, it has not received much sustained attention from deontologists. However, interesting arguments for it can be extracted from Thomas Scanlon’s contractualism and from Kant’s own theory, and the chapter examines these in some detail. Where Kant’s theory is concerned, the doctrines discussed include the universalizability test, the idea that each rational agent is an end in himself, the idea that all rational agency commands our respect, and the idea that we all have duties of self-perfection. Although there is obviously room for further discussion, the chapter’s conclusion is that no convincing deontological argument for putting any thoughts off limits is yet in sight.

How to Believe Long Conjunctions of Beliefs: Probability, Quasi-Dogmatism and Contextualism

According to the so-called Lockean thesis, a rational agent believes a proposition just in case its probability is sufficiently high, i.e., greater than some suitably fixed threshold. The Preface paradox is usually taken to show that the Lockean thesis is untenable, if one also assumes that rational agents should believe the conjunction of their own beliefs: high probability and rational belief are in a sense incompatible. In this paper, we show that this is not the case in general. More precisely, we consider two methods of computing how probable must each of a series of propositions be in order to rationally believe their conjunction under the Lockean thesis. The price one has to pay for the proposed solutions to the paradox is what we call “quasi-dogmatism”: the view that a rational agent should believe only those propositions which are “nearly certain” in a suitably defined sense.

Self-knowledge and the Paradox of Belief Revision

To qualify as a fully rational agent, one must be able rationally to revise one’s beliefs in the light of new evidence. This requires, not only that one revise one’s beliefs in the right way, but also that one do so as a result of appreciating the evidence on the basis of which one is changing one’s mind. However, the very nature of belief seems to pose an obstacle to the possibility of satisfying this requirement – for, insofar as one believes that p, any evidence that not-p will strike one as misleading and, on the face of it, believing that a certain piece of evidence is misleading is incompatible with appreciating the fact that such evidence should bear on the question at hand. Call this the ‘Paradox of Belief Revision’. This paper introduces the Paradox of Belief Revision, compares it with Kripke’s Dogmatism Paradox, and suggests that we may be able to see a way out of the former if we assume that rational agents are systematically aware of their own beliefs as beliefs they have.

Justification of Morality: Clarifying One of the Tasks of the Ethical Theory

The paper deals with borders between different tasks of the ethical theory such as defining, explaining, justifying morality, and clarifying its normative content. The focus of the study is justification of morality, i.e. developing the argumentation that can persuade a rational agent to accept moral requirements and to carry them out. The justification of morality uses as its premise some universal human needs or traits and establishesthe essential tie between them and theprincipled fulfillment of moral duty. The fact that everyone has these needs or traits should convince a rational moral skeptic to abandon her skepticism. The immediate subjects of the analysis are 1) precedents of the unreflecting confusion of justification and three other tasks of ethics and 2) conscious efforts to make the scientific explanation of morality a basis of justification. The author supposes that definitions of morality and its evolutionary, psychological, sociological explanations, no matter how neat and sophisticated they are, can not provide a ‘grip’ on a rational agent. At the same time, clarifications of the general normative content of morality also can not justify it because they presuppose that this ‘grip’ is already in place. In this regard, such conceptions of justification as ‘evolutionary’, ‘psychological’, ‘sociological’, ‘utilitarian’, and even ‘contractual’ are impossible. The author also shows that efforts of some theoreticians to base their justifications on the fact that human beings are constituted to be altruistic by evolution (R. Richards) or carrying out moral norms has an enormous beneficial effect on society (R. Campbell, A.V. Rasin) are not very successful. The real justuficatory work in these cases is done not by the appeal to biological or sociological facts but by traditional arguments – the benefit of an agent or the self-evidence of intuitions