Phil
397: Practical Reasoning
State
University of New York at Geneseo
Q: What human
behaviors are generally irrational?
____ common behavior: wishful thinking, self-deception,
enjoys flattery, denial of truth, emotional response, resentment of
politicians,
____ eccentric behavior: gambling, buying lottery,
compulsive buying, trusting psychics, seek unjustified ways to change oneีs
lot,
Q: Do you
think that humans are rational? If
we are generally rational, under what conditions do we act irrationally? How does irrationality creep into our
thinking or behavioral mode?
Q: Is there
a significant difference in our reasoning when it concerns our well-being? Does reasoning involving self-interest
operation in the same way as reasoning on purely theoretical matter?
Q: Why is
there a gap between oneีs judgment and oneีs action? Do such gaps threaten human rationality? Or is weakness of will a separate
issue?
Q: What is
the foundation of human rationality?
Is it by nature or by social convention? How much of rationality itself (not just standards of
rationality) is relative to society?
Q: Do
humans evolve in terms of rationality?
Are primitive people as rational as we are? To what extent is rationality based on knowledge about the
world?
Lecture Outline
Stephen Stich: Could Man Be An Irrational Animal?
Donald Davidson: Who Is Fooled?
Donald Davidson: Incoherence and Irrationality
Donald Davidson: Paradoxes of Irrationality
Donald Davidson: Deception and Division
Donald Davidson: How Is Weakness of Will Possible
Ariela Lazar: Division and Deception: Davison on Being
Self-Deceived
Jean-Pierre Dupuy: Rationality and Self-Deception
Kent Bach: (Apparent) Paradoxes of Self-Deception and
Decision
Alfred Mele: Self-Deception Unmasked (Chapter I, II, III, IV, V)
Simon Blackburn: Ruling Passions (Chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
Robert Audi: The Architecture of Reason