Pinker isn’t a philosopher, so he won’t provide any useful definition to go with here.Still, in one of his books he attributes bias and motivated reasoning for irrationality. One then may inversely deduce that Pinker’s rationality is a state of disinterest and objectiveness. I believe Pinker’s implicit conception of rationality falls in line with the classical thinkers of the Enlightenment.
The author of this, although they might be using Pinker’s definition. For example, I’d argue that a rational decision is still possible with limited or imperfect information and I could point to modelling to back it up.
The author simply contends that the modern concept of rationality is built on false premises; that is, some erroneously hold rationality as a standard for absolute truth.
Yes, you can make a rational decision with limited or imperfect information, the author doesn’t deny so. But a rational decision isn’t necessarily a good decision.
Alright. That brings me back to his definition of rationality, though. A lot of definitions would say a decision making process that consistently gives good results is rational by definition.
According to one of his articles, Pinker defines rationality as “the use of knowledge to attain goals. It has a normative dimension, namely how an agent ought to reason in order to attain some goal…” (Britannica).
It’s safe to say through his employment of the term “normative” Pinker perceives the resolution of major problems in absolutes. There is one right answer and its opposite is wrong, and there is only one way to arrive at the right answer and this is through so-called “reason”, which if you read Pinker’s works you’d quickly understand that only his way of thinking constitutes “reason” (I posted a shortened version of my review on of his books on this site btw). To refer back to the author, “It’s a perfectly safe assumption in GCSE maths or physics when the opposite of a right idea is wrong. But in major questions, the opposite of a good idea may be another good idea.”
This is in principal a hit on Pinker’s scientific reductionism which more often than not fails to accomodate real life problems that aren’t in a vaccum.
What definition of rationality is this guy using?
You mean Pinker or the author of the article?
Pinker isn’t a philosopher, so he won’t provide any useful definition to go with here.Still, in one of his books he attributes bias and motivated reasoning for irrationality. One then may inversely deduce that Pinker’s rationality is a state of disinterest and objectiveness. I believe Pinker’s implicit conception of rationality falls in line with the classical thinkers of the Enlightenment.
The author of this, although they might be using Pinker’s definition. For example, I’d argue that a rational decision is still possible with limited or imperfect information and I could point to modelling to back it up.
The author simply contends that the modern concept of rationality is built on false premises; that is, some erroneously hold rationality as a standard for absolute truth.
Yes, you can make a rational decision with limited or imperfect information, the author doesn’t deny so. But a rational decision isn’t necessarily a good decision.
Alright. That brings me back to his definition of rationality, though. A lot of definitions would say a decision making process that consistently gives good results is rational by definition.
According to one of his articles, Pinker defines rationality as “the use of knowledge to attain goals. It has a normative dimension, namely how an agent ought to reason in order to attain some goal…” (Britannica).
It’s safe to say through his employment of the term “normative” Pinker perceives the resolution of major problems in absolutes. There is one right answer and its opposite is wrong, and there is only one way to arrive at the right answer and this is through so-called “reason”, which if you read Pinker’s works you’d quickly understand that only his way of thinking constitutes “reason” (I posted a shortened version of my review on of his books on this site btw). To refer back to the author, “It’s a perfectly safe assumption in GCSE maths or physics when the opposite of a right idea is wrong. But in major questions, the opposite of a good idea may be another good idea.”
This is in principal a hit on Pinker’s scientific reductionism which more often than not fails to accomodate real life problems that aren’t in a vaccum.