This two-week module offers a broad introduction to the concept of rationality by focusing on five key philosophical debates. The module is fast-moving and provocative. Each topic is treated intensively over one day, leaving alternate days free for preparation. One or two discussion leaders coordinate each day, with contributions and interventions by other faculty members. Each day is made up of a mix of lectures, student presentations, discussion sessions, and independent study periods.
Topic 1: Is Irrationality a Conceptual Impossibility?
Discussion leader: Maria van der Schaar
Habitually we speak of ‘rational’ as something that we strive to be and may fail to be, but is large-scale and persistent deviation from rationality a conceptual possibility? If irrationality is conceptually possible, what is it that makes us rational? If irrationality is conceptually impossible, how can we explain self-deceit and lack of moral self-control (akrasia)? While addressing these questions, the basic concepts of the rationality debates will be introduced, such as cause, reason, faith, judgement, belief, and acceptance.
Topic 2: Which is More Fundamental, Rationality or Truth?
Discussion leader: G? Sundholm
Valid arguments in logic are said to be ‘truth preserving’, whereas pragmatists such as Charles S. Peirce define truth as the end of a tradition of rational inquiry. Whereas it seems obvious that rationality and truth are intimately linked, what of a systematic nature can be said about their interrelation? What are the consequences of discarding each notion, and relying solely on the other?
Topic 3: Is Rationality Unique?
Discussion leader: James W. McAllister
Absolutism about rationality is the doctrine that there exists just one pattern of reasoning that has a privileged relationship with the norms of rationality and thus with the world. Relativism about rationality rejects this stance, allowing that multiple different patterns of reasoning may be as good as one another. What are the merits of these positions?
Topic 4: Is It Irrational to Be Immoral?
Discussion leader: Bruno Verbeek
The question ‘why be moral?’ has kept philosophers occupied at least since Plato’s Republic. Various answers have been offered, but one answer keeps surfacing and that is that rationality requires us to comply with the standards of morality. Thus, the claim is that it is irrational to be immoral. In this session we will investigate this claim. Can immoral acts be interpreted as the result of rational shortcomings, or are there limits to this approach?
Topic 5: Have Our Models of Rationality Improved Since Plato?
Discussion leaders: Frans de Haas and Herman Siemens
In Plato, reason is a key feature of the human kind, a sign of its unique position in the universe and the guarantee for its all-embracing powers of understanding. In modern thought, reason is centred on the subject rather than the universe, epistemology has itself assumed the position of prima philosophia instead of serving it, and historical self-awareness is considered part of reason. If so, can we say that our models of rationality have improved? Or are they puzzling historical reflections of our shifting views of humankind?
Method of instruction
Lectures and discussion sessions
Examination
One short paper (approximately 3 pages) giving a critical appraisal of one of the positions in the field, on each of three of the topics, to be chosen by the student. Due date: end of Week 3.
Required reading
Topic 1
*Cohen, L. Jonathan. 1992. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Davidson, Donald. 1982, “Paradoxes of Irrationality”, in Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins, eds., Philosophical Essays on Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; pp. 289–305.
Topic 2
*Davidson, Donald. 2004. Problems of Rationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *Hookway, Christopher. 2000. Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Topic 3
*Geertz, Clifford. 1984. “Anti Anti-Relativism”, _American Anthropologist _86, pp. 263–278. *Hollis, Martin, and Steven Lukes, eds. 1982. Rationality and Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Topic 4
*Brink, David. 1986. “Externalist Moral Realism”, Southern Journal of Philosophy 24, Supplement, pp. 23–42. *Gauthier, David. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Excerpts from chapter 6.)
Topic 5
*Frede, Michael, and Gisela Striker, eds. 1999. Rationality in Greek Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Gellner, Ernst. 1992. Reason and Culture: The Historic Role of Rationality and Rationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Timetable
see Timetable MPhil in Philosophy: Rationality 2009-2010
Registration
Please register for this course with the student administration: y.van.eijk@phil.leidenuniv.nl
Information
dr. J.W. McAllister ( j.w.mcallister@phil.leidenuniv.nl)
Remarks
Compulsory for all first-year research master students.
All sessions of the module Key Issues in Rationality take place in the first two weeks of the 1st semester (September).