Rationality and Reality.

I agree, but rationality is always under threat, as our thinking and feelings are more likely to change than our knowledge of matter/reality....so IMO, it's very important to realize that overcoming grief{for ex} is more a matter of correct thinking, leading to the establishment of an appropriate emotional response.

We're all entitled to momentarily be overcome by loss, but the process resolves itself via the application of correct thinking....and as I continue to say, if you're suffering emotionally{without physical torment} then your thinking is at fault.

Rationality is the belief in order and the mindset necessary to study it with a critical mind, a critical mind wants to know truth...a critical mind isn't looking to maintain biases....there's no downside to truth.
Rationality must be supported by the necessary emotions that enable that critical examination.

Quinn, you've lost me. What part of rationality are you talking about?

The whole part of rationality---
the ability, the perception, the definition of it and in what we need to descern how we measure the construct of reality and how reliable that is.

So you're saying that perception and interpretation are completely socially constructed? Could you explain that a little better?

Just to throw in an anthropological issue...

The Azande (as reported by Evans-Pritchard) had a central "rationality" based on an assumption of "witchcraft". Thus all disease and misbehaviour were attributed to malicious spells and enchantments. So e.g. despite "Western scientific medicine" the patient did not become/feel "cured" unless the correct excorisms were performed.

Now the question is does such a "rationality" form the basis for "reality", or indeed does "reality" exist at all as an "independent state?.

are we not 'dancing around' the simple fact that we all act on impulses processed by our own personal 'computers' - our brains; and 'rationality' is what they are all 'about'.
However, obviously they are all totally, and severally dependent on an individual subset of 'programming' and 'unput'.

All an individual can do is try to consciously adjust their own specific, historically inherited 'programming' to be as 'current' as possible (there's a whole story in itself)and refine the validity of 'input' data, to the best of their abilities.

Thus our own 'itteration' of reality.

BoGoWo

I'm trying to get a picture of a computer "adjusting its own programming". I think I can only resolve this by a second order cybernetic model in which a transcendent "controller" monitors the efficacy of a/some at lower level. The problem then becomes one of defining "efficacy".

Saying that reality exists independantly of rationality doesn't mean that reality can't be effected by it under certain circumstances - if you believe you are sick, your body won't work as hard to get better - no doubt this has more to do with psychology than anything. But that doesn't change the fact that you got sick or the reason that you got sick, or what in fact made you better (which again, could more than likely be a psychological phenomenon).

Rufio,

The question is whether rationality and reality ARE separate issues. Once you take that on board then,
"facts" such as "sickness" and its "causes" need re-examination withrespect to cultural perceptions.
In our own culture we have a concept of "mental illness" which is "treated" by "doctors". It is still a matter of dispute whether certain categories (e.g. depression) are stretching the normal boundaries of "illness", or indeed whether all "illness" has a psychological component because of an inextricable mind-body linkage which westerners artificially separate.

Well, one break down the more or less culturally defined word "illness" and refer instead to what chemicals/other parts of the body/ect are actually doing and what actually caused them to stop. I don't think westerners particularly separate mind and body any more than anyone else does, but that's just my expirience anyway. I think everyone knows that believing you're sick is going to keep you sick longer. In my experience, people I knew used to use that to make themselves sicker and get more excused absences from school.

fresco

twyvel

By "same sensory apparatus" we forget that even this "sameness" is "functional", in that we generally mean agreement on peripheral features, for the purposes of sensory correction like eyeglasses. But I agree with most of your points.

Don't bother. I tried. They ain't talkin'.

Depends on your definition of "squirrels." :wink:

truth
Well, as usual I found this very exciting thread too late. I don't have time for catch-up, other than a very quick scan. But here are some comments, in which I will try to overlook issues of dualism vs. non-dualism, in deference to Joe and Frank. At least I'll do so as long as possible, despite the fact that they will be functioning dualistically throughout. But that's o.k.. I will function as an interactionist or dialectical monist in a manner they may not notice.
First, Tywvel, I thought that Warhol was confessing to his dramaturgical life style, that he was admittedly "superficial," more concerned with appearances and styles than with any kind of substance.

This thread, examining the connection between rationality and reality, is one which relates to the philosophy of Rationalism with its assumption of the identity of the two: namely that the structure of Reality is identical to the structure of human logic.
As a pragmatist, I think of rationality as a means-end process, the habit of fashioning ideas, plans, images, programs, etc. designed to serve as "effective" MEANS toward the achievement of ENDS. It is a practical capacity which has enabled us otherwise weak creatures to survive.

But I acknowlege that both rationality and reality are constructed notions to which we can give multiple definitions. I try to define my situations in ways that both MAKE SENSE to me and help me get along in practical terms. The first is fundamentally a cultural notion. My sense is also my culture's sense, TO A LARGE EXTENT. I must admit that "my" particular sense(s) of things is not shared by all members of my society, and that I have no way of knowing if I share ANY sense with any other individual COMPLETELY. But I do know that if enough people consider my speech and actions to "make no sense", if they seem to be completely private and insufficiently public, I'll be locked up as a wacko--or expelled/ostracised/shunned if I live in a more "primitive" society. The "primitive" Azande practiced a kind of very "hard" determinism. In their world view there were no coincidences or accidents. Every unfortunate act could be explained, either naturalistically or supernaturalistically in terms of the malevolent acts of sorcerers and witches. It would make good sense for us to identify the death of a man from snake bite as the result of an accidental meeting of the two on a path. In Azande culture it would be "normal to ask, on such an occasation, who is the sorcerer or witch who "caused" the man to be on that spot in the path at the same time that the snake was there. Given their system of thought, according to Evans-Pritchard, that would be a rational question. To us it would not. Different rationalities; same reality (the man killed by a snake).

Yes fresco

truth
Twyvel, "a form of anesthetization from what is" refers to the "actuality" rather than the "utility" distinction made by Fresco earlier. But I agree that "all 'stories' are [']false['--useful or not--] in that they are [fictions]."