Is rationality a matter of reasoning in a way that is likely to generate true beliefs?

In the glossary of the A333 module book (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 195) we see that ‘according to the standard picture of rationality, someone counts as reasoning in a rational way only if they are reasoning in accordance with principles based on the rules of logic, probability, and so on’. This is a normative way of approaching the principals of reasoning (Stein, cited in (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 163). This is not a descriptive account of how humans actually reason, it is an account of how one ought to reason in order to reason in a way that can be considered to be rational. Philosophers, among others, have been surprised by the discoveries of psychological research experiments that seem to undermine the commonly acceptable (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 10), Aristotelian notion of the intellectual superiority of the humankind. One of the beliefs of western philosophy is that we are, by definition, rational beings (The Open University, 2014).

The psychological experiments, that made philosophers question this standard picture of rationality, have shown that in fact, ‘most people are not fundamentally competent at reasoning in accordance with principles of’ the standard picture of rationality (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 25). This has created a puzzle: ‘If we are so damp, how did we send a man to the moon?’ (Papineau, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 172.) Philosophers have responded to this paradox with a variety of ways. Sosa and Galloway (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 165) solve the paradox by rejecting the normative notion of the standard picture of rationality, and adopting a descriptive, ‘community-relative’, idea of human rationality. Chater and Oaksford (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 169) on the other hand, take a different path in their attempt to solve the rationality puzzle. They make a distinction between every day and formal reasoning, with tight relationship between the two (The Open University, 2014).

Papineau has a similar notion of two different kind of reasoning, and he believes in a normative approach to reasoning focused on the consequences of a method as the factor to judge its rationality. He rejects Sosa and Galloway’s descriptive approach, believing it ‘makes rationality far too relative a matter’ (The Open University, 2014). He focuses on the consequences of rationality, i.e., the extent to which it generates true beliefs; as he favours truth above other possible consequences (The Open University, 2014). In the next paragraphs we’ll go through Papineau’s consequentialist theory’s points, one by one, and examine whether they can stand criticism. This should answer the question: Is rationality a matter of reasoning in a way that is likely to generate true beliefs?

In the beginning of his arguments, Papineau (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 170) is setting the standards of rationality for any method of reasoning to be depended on the extend that the method at question issues in true beliefs. Then, he states his position to theoretical reasoning as a consequentialist notion and the only way to generate beliefs with high levels of reliability to approach the truth. This, he continues, seems to create a potential threat to the idea that theoretical reasoning and the search for truth should be favoured when we come to evaluate between different belief-forming processes. It is not clear why we should value the truth over other consequences of belief-forming processes (like significance, or frugality), which are qualities that certainly need to be considered when it comes to the pragmatic status of the time and resources available in the real world.

Another crucial desideratum is the factor of how intresting is a truthful information. Is it worthwhile to spend time and intellectual resources to pursue such truth (The Open University, 2014)? Counting ‘the number of blades of grass on my lawn’ one by one, is a true belief approached by excluding all other desiderata except to find the true answer, using a ‘purely truth-conductive’ method. Nevertheless, it is better, most would agree, if no number of resources is waisted in such a not useful information (The Open University, 2014). In that sense, wide rationality can be more rational than epistemic rationality in certain cases. Papineau suggests that the potential threat to the superiority of the truth (over significance or frugality for example) can be avoided if we redefine our idea of theoretical rationality, by dividing rationality into two categories: namely epistemic rationality, and wide theoretical rationality (Papineau, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 171). Papineau admits the equality of their importance. He also admits the sufficiency of these methods in realistic situations, for example, with time limitations.

However, Papineau (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 172) openly favours epistemic rationality, and he is blaming wide rationality of using ‘quick and dirty’ methods, ‘heuristics’, in an intuitive and automatic way, to generate ‘unreliable’ and ‘illusory’ judgements. Papineau does not believe that our doxastic methods, bequeathed by natural evolution, need to worry us regarding our potential to acquire true beliefs. He suggests that we can train our brains to ignore our, intuitive judgements (Papineau, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 173), even if we cannot silence our automatic responses. Moreover, we can train our brains, through education, to use the more reliable methods of epistemic reasoning, that use the principles of probability calculus, propositional logic, and so on. They are, Papineau proclaims, guaranteed to track, and calculate the truth, with their deliberate methods, and they can transcend our primitive proclivities. Papineau also shares with Carolyn Price his view of the superiority of philosophy, as scientific ‘theories are in a tangle or in a mess’, and philosophers can come to the rescue, and help scientist to ‘untangle the theories’ (The Open University, 2014).

The method that Papineau (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 172) suggests includes three steps. First, to identify and analyse the different kinds of problems situation. Then, identify the methods that will generate true answers to that specific question. And finally, one needs to practice these reliable methods to be able to ignore his intuitive, wrong, judgements, and calculate the true answers, at least when the time given allows. These are the steps, according to Papineau, that can have the consequences of generating reliable ‘knowledge’ and ‘justified believe’, to the exclusion of other desiderata, such as frugality, (Papineau, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 171). This would minimise the performance errors, that according to Stein (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 22), can interfere with our ability to reason, and should not be confused with making competence errors, namely lacking altogether the ability to reason; what is threatened by the psychological experiments. Papineau emphasises the role of education to improve our reasoning skills and ‘set ourselves to be more reliable sources of true belief’.

Stich argues against that view, that puts truth to the top of our consequentialist preferences. He argues that it is not at all truth that we value the most. It is ‘health, happiness, the welfare of our children and so on’ (Stich, cited in Kornblith, 1993, p. 370). However, Hilary Kornblith, in her paper with the title ‘Epistemic Normality’ has a more convincing counterargument. She points out that if, for example, it is happiness that we seek (over truth), we would still be wiser if we went to our search for happiness using formal rationality methods. If we were guided by our wish to be happy, we will only get as far as to find answers that makes as happy (as answers), not answers that truly generate happiness (Kornblith, 1993, p. 371). She states that ‘any account of epistemic evaluation which does not give truth a central role to play is inadequate’ (Kornblith, 1993, p. 372).

A possibly threatening factor to Papineau’s hopes, about the improving effects of education in human reasoning, is that both non-experts and experts (80 to 90 per cent of the participants) are failing quite dramatically in a substantial amount of these psychological researchers (The Open University, 2014). Nevertheless, Lisa Bortolotti argues that these experiments are misleading the subjects (for example by the way the question is phrased), thus tricking them to use the wrong, for the required task, kind of reasoning (The Open University, 2014). A philosopher who is a pessimist could interpret the results as proof that humans are not fundamentally rational, when in fact, they have only been successfully tricked by the experiment conductors. Mike Oaksford also supports the idea that in the psychological researchers that test human’s ability to reason the subjects did make ‘a rational response’ solving the wrong problem (The Open University, 2014).

Papineau seems to imply, with his harsh tone (‘quick and dirty’), that epistemic rationality should be always preferred, when possible, from reliance in any intuitive judgement. He is warning us, that any other method of reasoning, which does not follow the principles of probability, logic, and so on, is not a reliable guide to the truth, and will lead us to illusory judgements. As we saw, he admits that wide rationality is equally important, as it could be our only option when we haven’t been trained to face a new challenge, or when we have a time restriction. Nevertheless, Papineau thesis is clear: Rationality, (according to the rules of logic, probability, and so on; what he calls ‘epistemic rationality’) is the only matter of reasoning in a way that is likely to generate true beliefs.

Yet, there is another approach to the rationality debate. In Polanyi’s (cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 186) attempt to solve the paradox, he is rejecting the standard picture of rationality, and its exclusive use of explicit methods of probability, logic and so on. He has an alternative to Papineau’s idea about knowledge and skills. He does not focus on the errors that our intuitive judgement might make. Instead, he suggests the idea that any notion of knowledge, and any skill to acquire knowledge, can use formal rules of methods only as maxims (Polanyi, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 187), as a guide to ‘the practical knowledge of the art’. Polanyi tells us that, just like we can ride a bicycle without being able to articulate how we do it, every science has its own unspecifiable, tacit, hidden rules (Polanyi, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 188). These hidden rules can only pass as taught skills, from master to apprentice; they can only be communicated by example.

By consequence, one must submit to rules that even his teacher might not comprehend the reason of their existence, yet they take a valid part in the success of the method. Doctors are highly relying on diagnostic skills that can only be gained by experience and cannot be explained by clearly articulated differential diagnosis maxims. Unlike what we think of science, this tacit aspect of knowledge, according to Polanyi, is found in the scientific fields of, not only medicine, but also of chemistry, biology, and physics (The Open University, 2014). Polanyi supports his argument by pointing out the practical courses to transmit laboratory knowledge to the science students (Polanyi, cited in Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 189), and he concludes that, the tacit aspects of scientific knowledge are equally necessary for any notion of actual standard picture of rationality; even if ‘scientific rationalism has hitherto denied due recognition’ (The Open University, 2014).

Polanyi’s tacit knowledge argument can be a serious threat to Papineau’s certainty that rationality (in accordance with the standard picture) is the only way to generate true beliefs. Still, I argue ‘that they talk about different things (Kornblith, 1993, p. 366.) One needs not to regret Polanyi’s tacit knowledge idea, to keep the standard picture of rationality. Tacit knowledge might indeed touch all aspects of science. Nevertheless, ‘science aims to make all its tacit knowledge explicit’ (Price and Chimisso, 2014, p. 152) using probability principles, logic, etc. In conclusion, this essay’s thesis is that rationality is a matter of reasoning in a way that is likely to generate true beliefs.

Bibliography:

Chimisso, Ch. and Price C., (2014), Knowledge and Reason A333 Book 5, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Kornblith, H., (1993), ‘Epistemic normality’, Synthese, vol. 94, no. 3, pp. 357-76.

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