Quotes About Rationality

Ockham's razor is only a methodological principle, not a necessary truth

This dictate of common sense.

In recent philosophy there has been a growing awareness of the gap between the abstract principles proposed by philosophers and the ways in which people actually think. The kind of rationality admired in the theory of knowledge is idealization. In the real world people have to act on beliefs often based on fragmentary and unreliable evidence.

Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brains works so well that our reasoning can work at all.

This is the essence of psychological rationalism: We grow into our rationality as caterpillars grow into butterflies. If the caterpillar eats enough leaves, it will (eventually) grow wings. And if the child gets enough experiences of turn taking, sharing, and playground justice, it will (eventually) become a moral creature, able to use its rational capacities to solve ever harder problems. Rationality is our nature, and good moral reasoning is the end point of development.

I believe the Scottish philosopher David Hume was closer to the truth than was Plato when he said, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Emotional reasoning is among the most common of all cognitive distortions; most people would be happier and more effective if they did less of it.

The ability to reason combined with a lack of moral emotions is dangerous.

Rationality is our nature, and good moral reasoning is the end point of development.

In other words, under normal circumstances the rider takes its cue from the elephant, just as a lawyer takes instructions from a client. But if you force the two to sit around and chat for a few minutes, the elephant actually opens up to advice from the rider and arguments from outside sources. Intuitions come first, and under normal circumstances they cause us to engage in socially strategic reasoning, but there are ways to make the relationship more of a two-way street.

David Hume, who wrote in 1739 that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason. We all need to take a cold hard look at the evidence and see reasoning for what it is.

Damasio's patients made terrible decisions because they were deprived of emotional input into their decision making.

Passions often corrupt reason, but if we can learn to control those passions, our God-given rationality will shine forth and guide us to do the right thing, not the popular thing.

Human rationality depends on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brains work so well that our reasoning can work at all.

Kant, like Plato, wanted to discover the timeless, changeless form of the Good. He believed that morality had to be the same for all rational creatures, regardless of their cultural or individual proclivities.

had found evidence for Hume's claim. I had found that moral reasoning was often a servant of moral emotions, and this was a challenge to the rationalist approach that dominated moral psychology.

That is why intelligence is no defense against false belief.

Si può sostenere che diventare adulti, cosa che la psicanalisi dovrebbe aiutare a fare, significhi abbandonare il pensiero magico per il pensiero razionale, ma si può ugualmente sostenere che non occorre abbandonare nulla, che ciò che è vero su un dato piano mentale non lo è sull'altro, e che i piani bisogna abitarli tutti, dalla cantina al solaio.

The dangerous thing about hate is that it seems so reasonable." --from The Chalk Garden

The dangerous thing about hate is that it seems so reasonable.

Inteligencia emocional significa capacidad para mezclar los instrumentos de la razón y los de la afectividad.

la evidencia de que la inutilidad de cualquier intento de construir racionalmente el mundo exterior implica necesariamente la incapacidad de crear una identidad propia.

Anti-Semitism was thus one of the keys of a 'reactionary modernism' based on a synthesis of modern rationality and technology with the conservative values of the anti-Enlightenment