Rationality

Drawing on Sylvia Wynter’s insight that the theodicean grammar of racism is also a “biodicy,” this article explores its implications for an understanding of the formation of blackness as a modern phenomenon and its significance for models of rationalization and reason, on the one hand, and conditions of normative practice, on the other.

In this presentation, I will join the group of critics of Dennett's conception of the intentional stance. In doing so, I shall mainly focus on its usage for predictions of biological intentional systems, thus animals and humans.
I take issue with Dennett's concept of rationality that underlies his theory of human prediction making. When we try to predict or explain a biological system such as a human, we almost always assume that it will have rational beliefs and desires and act accordingly. Whenever a system's behaviour contradicts or deviates from perfect biological rationality, so the story goes, we can integrate our knowledge about the culturally transmitted memes the system got infected by. In order to make his concept of rationality work, Dennett needs to claim that the person making a prediction of someone else's behaviour is able to step back behind her own meme-infections, to be a perfectly rational observer for the moment of predicting. I will argue that this picture is misleading and underestimates cultural influences on a person's rationality assumption. Instead of being rational and treating the other as rational though restricted by his memes, we already start off from a very restricted rationality assumption. This is due to our own idea-infected minds that are - by these very same ideas - protected against doubts, and due to the emotions that accompany our cultural norms. Nevertheless, so we argue, this is not a bug, but a characteristic feature.

This article explores how several subtle issues concerning political judgments raised in Harry Potter are reflected in contemporary policy making. Using Rowling's story as a starting point, we show that findings on systematic errors in judgment—or cognitive biases—studied in psychology and behavioral economics can lead to repeated misjudgments that obstruct sound policy prioritization. We examine several cognitive principles that (1) influence how decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty and (2) explain why some predictions underpinning those decisions can run quite seriously awry. These operate in both Harry's fictional world and the current policy approaches to climate change, counterterrorism, obesity, and immigration. We emphasize the need for policy makers and citizens to be more acutely aware of the kinds and scope of repeated errors in judgment that rational choice models cannot fully explain or predict. Finally, we note how cognitive bias might be potentially reduced in certain collective decision-making strategies.

Este trabajo se propone revisar la distinción putnamiana entre aprioridad contextual y aprioridad absoluta, entendida como una respuesta a la revisabilidad universal de Quine. Para ello se analizan algunos elementos de la lectura que Putnam hace de Quine, específicamente en torno a la idea de que la crítica a la distinción analítico/sintético implica la negación de los enunciados a priori. Posteriormente se analiza el principio mínimo de no contradicción (PMNC), presentado por Putnam como un caso de a priori absoluto, discutiendo algunos de los argumentos introducidos en su defensa. Se sostiene que la defensa por Putnam de la aprioridad absoluta del principio no es satisfactoria, en cuanto si se concede que el estado futuro del conocimiento científico puede derivar en modificaciones en lo que actualmente consideramos como a priori, entonces todos los enunciados a priori son contextuales. Se discute luego la tesis putnamiana de que el abandono del PMNC implica el abandono de las nociones de verdad, creencia, y de la racionalidad misma, objetando que el vínculo entre el principio y las nociones de verdad y creencia responde a la estructura de nuestras condiciones epistémicas actuales.   

Since the past three decades, numerous contributions have been made by the traditional finance proponents in assisting investors making good investment decisions assuming that they are rational decision makers, and unbiased in predicting the future. Nevertheless, proponents of behavioural finance always argued that people do act in irrational manner and often make predictable errors in their forecasts thus violated these assumptions. Market anomalies and crashes are some of the examples that explain the existence of psychological bias that lead  to inefficient outcomes. When come to investing, different investors would have different investment style and strategy, depending on their objectives. Some don’t even have strategy and would rather ask for ‘hot tips’ or listening to rumours. Prior studies revealed that some investors would prefer listening to strangers when the stock is fundamentally strong and consistent with their investment goals. This consequently would affect their investment objectives, causes mispricing, discourage trading among market participants and contribute towards market inefficiencies. Thus, in line to address this gap, the main objective of this research is to study the factors that influence investors’ decision-making style and investment success. The research framework is adopted from Muhammad and Abdullah (2009), which suggested that investors’ decision-making style and investment success could be influenced by the ability to analyze the environmental, financial and economic information (i.e rational manner) and individuals’ emotions and frame of references (irrational manner). The research identified that investors’ decision-making style is heavily influenced by financial analysis in which contributes towards their investment decision success. In other words, investors are rational when making decision investing in the capital market. On the other hand, other variables do not show any significant relationship with the dependent variable.

Field of Research: behavioural finance, decision-making style, prospect theory, efficient market hypothesis

La tesis de la inconmensurabilidad ha provocado en las últimas
décadas una amplia serie de debates, siendo con frecuencia asociada a la imposibilidad de elección racional entre teorías rivales. Se ha entendido que la inconmensurabilidad constituye un obstáculo insalvable para postular que la ciencia es una actividad racional, en cuanto vuelve la elección teórica un asunto atravesado por severos procesos de ininteligibilidad, circularidad y fallas en la comunicación. Aquí pretendemos
mostrar que sólo ciertos aspectos acotados de la tesis de la
inconmensurabilidad son incompatibles con la racionalidad científica, precisando bajo qué condiciones su aceptación resulta compatible con la pretensión de que la ciencia es una actividad racional. En esta primera instancia, nos centraremos en discutir algunas implicancias de la inconmensurabilidad que entendemos incompatibles con una perspectiva racionalista de la ciencia, así como en establecer algunas condiciones iniciales para la e lección racional entre inconmensurables.

Library Science, as information science, is inevitably involved in epistemological debates affecting all scientifically based subjects. In the specific written works, different views have been developed trying to reach a concept in information science problems through some classical models of the XX century philosophy of science. Three possible ways to view the philosophy of science are presented herein: fundacionalism, normativism and descriptivism, and based on these, two specific views of the philosophy of the information science are revised.

In this paper I examine a neglected question concerning the centerpiece of Carnap's philosophy: the principle of tolerance. The principle of tolerance states that we are free to devise and adopt any well-defined form of language or linguistic framework we please. A linguistic framework defines framework-internal standards of correct reasoning that guide is in our first-order scientific pursuits. The choice of a linguistic framework, on the other hand, is an `external' question to be settled on pragmatic grounds and so not itself constrained by these (framework-internal) standards. However, even if choosing a framework is a practical matter, we would nevertheless expect the process of framework selection to be subject to rational norms. But which norms might those be? And where do they come from? I begin by showing that these questions are crucial to the success of Carnap's entire philosophical project. I then offer a response on behalf of the Carnapian which guarantees the rationality of the process of framework selection, while remaining true to Carnap's firm commitment to tolerance.

Studies of risk perception examine the judgments people
make when they are asked to characterize and evaluate
hazardous activities and technologies. This research aims
to aid risk analysis and policy-making by (i) providing a
basis for understanding and anticipating public responses
to hazards and (ii) improving the communication of risk
information among lay people, technical experts, and
decision-makers. This work assumes that those who promote
and regulate health and safety need to understand
how people think about and respond to risk. Without
such understanding, well-intended policies may be ineffective.